Published: Feb 1, 2024
Selection pressures vary through time and space and drive rapid adaptation. However, the genetic basis of rapid adaptation is often elusive. In a paper recently published in Genetics, the Bergland lab shows that a large cosmopolitan inversion facilitates rapid seasonal adaptation in Drosopila melanogaster. Using dense time-series samples from a population near the UVA campus, coupled with world-wide time-series sampling, and quantitative genetic analysis, we show that the inversion In(2L)t underlies rapid adaptation and is associated with many quantitative traits including aspects of behavior, morphology, and stress tolerance. This work also situates the adaptive evolutionary dynamics of Drosophila into a demographic context by showing that populations experience overwintering drift and that bottlenecks each winter reduce the local effective population size by >95%.
Congrats to the Bergland lab team for a heroic effort.
Read more here: Nunez et al - Genetics 2024