The impact of temperature stress on gene expression changes across development in Drosophila melanogaster
Voiceover
Presenter(s)
Jenna Tomkinson
Mentor
Dr. Gregory Ragland
Abstract or Description
Climate change impacts all parts of the world, with some areas experiencing greater changes than others. The ability for organisms to survive in changing environments can be attributed to both adaptation (the change in genotype based on natural selection) and phenotypic plasticity (the change in phenotype due to the environment without change in the genome). Drosophila melanogaster are ubiquitously distributed insects that show strong physiological plasticity and serve as models for physiological buffering of environmental change. In addition, D. melanogaster is a prime model for genetics and developmental biology because they share many features with mammalian species like cellular and tissue remodeling during development. This experiment measured whole-transcriptome responses to thermal stress across development, an indicator of how genes are differentially regulated to affect physiology. Specifically, gut tissue is known to be important during thermal responses. Yet, no one has explored the phenotypic plasticity in the whole-gut tissue of the juvenile (larval) stage in response to environmental temperature stressors. In this experiment, we measured the impact of cold-stress treatments on the gut transcriptomes of juvenile flies, then compared those results to a previous experiment applying the same treatments to adults. When comparing juvenile to adult transcriptomes, we found there are different physiological responses to the same cold-stress treatments, demonstrating phenotypic plasticity within and across the two life stages. This demonstrates the importance for models predicting change in populations confronting climate change which should consider the complex relationship between physiology and the environment during development. Understanding this model of D. melanogaster life stages can help reveal the evolutionary mechanisms used to respond to climate change.