Performance during free flight in Drosophila melanogaster
Most biologists studying whole organisms do not
use “model organisms” whose genetics and genomes are well understood. This
presents a serious problem for the ability of organismal biology to keep
pace and maintain relevance in the rapidly changing world of post-genomic
biology. However, most model organisms are not readily studied at the whole-organism
or ecological level, and few laboratories are equipped to examine whole-organism
physiological or behavioral traits of animals such as Drosopohila or C. elegans.
My laboratory has been trying to bridge this gap by quantifying flight
performance of Drosophila melanogaster and relating flight phenotypes to
genetic variation. We have constructed a novel computer-aided camera system
that tracks free-flying Drosophila melanogaster in three dimensions (60Hz
sampling rate; sub-millimeter spatial resolution). We are using this setup
to determine 1) the performance capacities of Drosophila and what limits
their performance, 2) the effect of selection regimes for improving flight
performance, 3) effects of particular mutations on flight ability, and 4)
QTL mapping of genomic regions that show significant effects on flight.
Publications to date from this project:
Montooth,
K.L., J.H. Marden and A.G. Clark. 2003. Mapping
determinants of variation in energy metabolism, respiration and flight
in Drosophila. Genetics 165: 623-635.
Marden, J.H., B. Rogina, K.L. Montooth, and S. Helfand. 2003. Conditional tradeoffs between aging and organismal performance of Indy long-lived mutant flies. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 100: 3369-3373.
Roberts, S.P., Marden J.H., and Feder, M.E. 2003. Dropping like flies: Environmentally-induced impairment and protection of locomotor performance in adult Drosophila melanogaster. Physiological and Biochemical Zoology 76, 615–621.
Swallow, J. G., G. S. Wilkinson, and J. H. Marden. 2000. Aerial performance of stalk-eyed flies that differ in eye span. Journal of Comparative Physiology B 170:481-487.
Marden, J.H., M.R. Wolf, and K.E. Weber. 1997.
Aerial performance of Drosophila melanogaster from populations selected
for upwind flight ability. Journal of Experimental Biology 200, 2747-2755.
Gravity (data for cautious souls who take nothing for granted)