昆虫飞行是一个复杂的性状,涉及不同的行为,寻找性伴侣,食物,或繁殖场所。许多研究假设某些形态特征与增加飞行能力有关的适应性优势,例如机翼载荷的低值或机翼的高值:胸部比和机翼纵横比。然而,很少有研究评估与果蝇飞行和形态性状相关的变量之间的关系。这项工作旨在研究两对兄弟姐妹物种的雄性和雌性的形态特征:果蝇buzzatiiPatterson和Wheeler-DrosophilakoeferaeFontdevila和Wasserman,和果蝇Meigen-拟态果蝇Sturtevant,并分析其与飞行的关系。与buzzatii和melanogasterD相比,我们检测到的D.koepferae和D.simulans的飞行时间比例最高,分别。我们的结果还揭示了性二态,男性的飞行时间比例高于女性。令人惊讶的是,我们没有找到一个通用模式来解释形态和飞行时间比例之间的关系,因为相关性根据分析的不同而不同(一起考虑所有群体或分别考虑每个性别-物种组合).此外,这些关联解释了低百分比的变异,表明与飞行有关的其他非形态成分,比如生理变量,应该考虑。这项工作使我们能够展示飞行方面的可变性和复杂性,这表明所研究的形态性状的适应性作用可能被高估了。
Insect flight is a complex trait involved in different behaviors, from the search for sexual partners, food, or breeding sites. Many studies have postulated the adaptive advantages of certain morphological traits in relation to increased flight capacity, such as low values of wing loading or high values of wing:thorax ratio and wing-aspect ratio. However, few studies have evaluated the relationship between variables related to flight and morphological traits in Drosophila. This work aimed to
study morphological traits in males and females of two pairs of sibling species: Drosophila buzzatii Patterson and Wheeler-Drosophila koeferae Fontdevila and Wasserman, and Drosophila melanogaster Meigen-Drosophila simulans Sturtevant, and to analyze its relationship with flight. We detected the highest proportion of flight time in D. koepferae and D. simulans compared to D. buzzatii and D. melanogaster, respectively. Our results also revealed sexual dimorphism, with males exhibiting a higher proportion of flight time than females. Surprisingly, we did not find a general pattern to explain the relationship between morphology and the proportion of flight time because associations varied depending upon the analyses (considering all groups together or each sex-species combination separately). Moreover, these associations explained a low percentage of variation, suggesting that other nonmorphological components related to flight, such as physiological variables, should be taken into account. This work allowed us to show the variability and complexity of an aspect of flight, suggesting that the adaptive role of the morphological traits studied might have been overestimated.