Drosophila
Drosophila melanogaster
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Arthropoda Class: Insecta Order: Diptera Family: Drosophilidae Subfamily: Drosophilinae Genus: Drosophila Fallén, 1823
Type species
Drosophila funebris (Fabricius, 1787)

Drosophila is a genus of small flies, belonging to the family Drosophilidae, whose members are often called "fruit flies" or more appropriately vinegar flies, wine flies, pomace flies, grape flies, and picked fruit-flies, a reference to the characteristic of many species to linger around overripe or rotting fruit. Drosophila melanogaster (from the Greek for black-bellied dew-lover) is a two-winged insect that belongs to the Diptera, the order Arthropods are Animals belonging to the Phylum Arthropoda (from Greek ἄρθρον arthron, " Joint " Insects ( Class Insecta) are a major group of Arthropods and the most diverse group of Animals on the Earth with over a million described True flies are Insects of the Order Diptera ( Greek: di = two and pteron = wing possessing a single pair of Drosophilidae is a diverse cosmopolitan family of flies, including the Genus Drosophila, which includes fruit flies The Drosophilinae are the largest Subfamily in the Drosophilidae. Carl Fredrik Fallén ( September 22, 1764 - August 26, 1830) was a Swedish Botanist and Entomologist. In biology a type is that which fixes a name to a Taxon. Depending on the nomenclature code which is applied to the organism in question a type may be a specimen Drosophila funebris (Fabricius 1787 is a species of Fly. It was originally placed in the genus Musca but is now the Type specimen Johan Christian Fabricius ( January 7, 1745 - March 3, 1808) was a Danish Entomologist and economist A genus (plural genera from Γένος Latin genus "descent family type gender" is a low-level Taxonomic True flies are Insects of the Order Diptera ( Greek: di = two and pteron = wing possessing a single pair of In Biological classification, family ( Latin Drosophilidae is a diverse cosmopolitan family of flies, including the Genus Drosophila, which includes fruit flies Vinegar is an acidic liquid processed from the Fermentation of Ethanol in a process that yields its key ingredient Acetic acid (also called ethanoic acid Wine is an Alcoholic beverage made from the fermentation of Grape juice Pomace (pronounced /PUHM-is/ is the solid remains of Grapes Olives or other Fruit after pressing for juice or oil For the Tokyo University supercomputer see Gravity Pipe. GRAPE, or GRA phics P rogramming E nvironment is A second, related fly family, the Tephritidae, are also called fruit flies; these feed primarily on unripe or ripe fruit, with many species being regarded as destructive agricultural pests, especially the Mediterranean fruit fly. Tephritidae is one of two fly families referred to as " fruit flies. The term fruit has different meanings dependent on context and the term is not synonymous in Food preparation and Biology. Ceratitis capitata, the Mediterranean fruit fly, or medfly for short is a species of Fruit fly capable of wreaking extensive damage to One species of Drosophila in particular, D. melanogaster, has been heavily used in research in genetics and is a common model organism in developmental biology. Drosophila melanogaster (from the Greek for black-bellied dew-lover) is a two-winged insect that belongs to the Diptera, the order Genetics (from Ancient Greek grc-Latn genetikos, “genitive” and that from grc-Latn genesis, “origin” a discipline of Biology, is A model organism is a Species that is extensively studied to understand particular biological Phenomena, with the expectation that discoveries made Developmental Biology is the official journal of the Society for Developmental Biology. Indeed, the terms "fruit fly" and "Drosophila" are often used synonymously with D. melanogaster in modern biological literature. The entire genus, however, contains about 1,500 species and is very diverse in appearance, behavior, and breeding habitat. Scientists who research Drosophila are often called Drosophilists.

Name

The term "Drosophila", meaning "dew-loving", is a modern scientific Latin adaptation from Greek words δρόσος, drósos, "dew", and φίλος, phílos, "loving" with the Latin feminine suffix -a. Latin ( lingua Latīna, laˈtiːna is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Greek (el ελληνική γλώσσα or simply el ελληνικά — "Hellenic" is an Indo-European language, spoken today by 15-22 million people mainly Formation Water will condense into droplets depending on the temperature

Morphology

Side view of head showing characteristic bristles above the eye.

D. setosimentum, a species of Hawaiian picture-wing fly.

Drosophila are small flies, typically pale yellow to reddish brown to black, with red eyes. True flies are Insects of the Order Diptera ( Greek: di = two and pteron = wing possessing a single pair of Many species, including the noted Hawaiian picture-wings, have distinct black patterns on the wings. The plumose (feathery) arista, bristling of the head and thorax, and wing venation are characters used to diagnose the family. Antennae (singular antenna) are paired Appendages connected to the front-most segments of Arthropods In Crustaceans they are Most are small, about 2–4 millimetres long, but some, especially many of the Hawaiian species, are larger than a house fly. The Millimetre ( American spelling: millimeter, symbol mm) is a unit of Length in the Metric system, equal to The housefly (also house fly, house-fly or common housefly) Musca domestica, is the most common of all Flies

Life cycle and ecology

Habitat

Drosophila are found all around the world, with more species in the tropical regions. They can be found in deserts, tropical rainforest, cities, swamps, and alpine zones. A desert is a Landscape or region that receives very little precipitation. Tropical rainforests are generally found near the Equator. They are common in Asia, Australia, Africa, South America, Central A city is an Urban area with a large Population and a particular Administrative, Legal, or Historical status A swamp is a Wetland featuring temporary or permanent inundation of large areas of land by shallow bodies of water For the climate of the mountains named the Alps, see Climate of the Alps. Some northern species hibernate. For the ability of certain operating systems see Hibernate (OS feature Hibernation is a state of inactivity and metabolic depression Most species breed in various kinds of decaying plant and fungal material, including fruit, bark, slime fluxes, flowers, and mushrooms. A fungus (ˈfʌŋgəs is a eukaryotic Organism that is a member of the kingdom Fungi (ˈfʌndʒaɪ The term fruit has different meanings dependent on context and the term is not synonymous in Food preparation and Biology. Bark, also known as periderm is the outermost layer of stems and Roots of Woody plants such as Trees It overlays the Wood and consists Slime flux is a Bacterial disease of certain trees primarily Elm, Cottonwood, Poplar, Boxelder, ash, Aspen, A flower, also known as a bloom or Blossom, is the reproductive structure found in Flowering plants (plants of the division Magnoliophyta, also A mushroom is the fleshy Spore -bearing Fruiting body of a Fungus, typically produced above ground on soil or on its food source A few species have switched to being parasites or predators. Parasitism is a type of symbiotic relationship between Organisms of different Species. Many species can be attracted to baits of fermented bananas or mushrooms, but others are not attracted to any kind of baits. For the fruit see Banana. For other meanings see Banana (disambiguation. Males may congregate at patches of suitable breeding substrate to compete for the females, or form leks, conducting courtship in an area separate from breeding sites. A lek is a gathering of Males of certain animal species for the purposes of competitive Mating display

Several Drosophila species, including D. melanogaster, D. immigrans, and D. simulans, are closely associated with humans, and are often referred to as domestic species. Drosophila simulans is a species of fly closely related to D melanogaster and which belongs to the same ''melanogaster'' species subgroup Domestication (from Latin domesticus) refers to the process whereby a Population of Animals These and other species (D. subobscura, Zaprionus indianus) have been accidentally introduced around the world by human activities such as fruit transports.

Reproduction

Drosophila melanogaster egg

Drosophila eggs inserted deep in bark, showing the long respiratory filaments.

Drosophila larva

Drosophila pupae – the white ones are young pupae while the brown ones are older.

Males of this genus are known to have the longest sperm cells of any organism on Earth, including one species, Drosophila bifurca, that have sperm that are 5. A spermatozoon or spermatozoan ( pl spermatozoa) from the Ancient Greek σπέρμα (seed and ζῷον (living being and more commonly known Drosophila bifurca is a species of Fruit fly. Males of this species are known to have the longest sperm cells of any organism on Earth an astonishing 8 centimetres long. A centimetre ( American spelling: centimeter, symbol cm) is a unit of Length in the Metric system, equal to one hundredth ^[1] The cells are mostly tail, and are delivered to the females in tangled coils. The other members of the genus Drosophila also make relatively few giant sperm cells, with D. bifurca's being the longest. ^[2] D. melanogaster sperm cells are a more modest 1. 8 millimetres long, although this is still about 300 times as long as a human sperm.

Drosophila vary widely in their reproductive capacity. Those such as D. melanogaster that breed in large, relatively rare resources have ovaries that mature 10–20 eggs at a time, so that they can be laid together on one site. "Ovaria" redirects here This is also a proposed section and a Synonym of Solanum. Others that breed in more-abundant but less nutritious substrates, such as leaves, may only lay one egg per day. The eggs have one or more respiratory filaments near the anterior end; the tips of these extend above the surface and allow oxygen to reach the embryo. Larvae feed not on the vegetable matter itself but on the yeasts and microorganisms present on the decaying breeding substrate. Yeasts are a growth form of eukaryotic Microorganisms classified in the kingdom Fungi, with about 1500 Species currently described A microorganism (also spelled micro organism or micro-organism and also called a microbe) is an Organism that is Microscopic (usually Development time varies widely between species (between 7 and more than 60 days) and depends on the environmental factors such as temperature, breeding substrate, and crowding. Temperature is a physical property of a system that underlies the common notions of hot and cold something that is hotter generally has the greater temperature

Laboratory–cultured animals

Drosophila melanogaster types. Eye colors (clockwise): brown, cinnabar, sepia, vermilion, white, wild. Also, the wild-eyed fly has a yellow body, the sepia-eyed fly has an ebony body, and the brown-eyed fly has a black body.

Drosophila melanogaster is a popular experimental animal because it is easily cultured in mass out of the wild, has a short generation time, and mutant animals are readily obtainable. In 1906 Thomas Hunt Morgan began his work on D. Thomas Hunt Morgan ( September 25, 1866 &ndash December 4, 1945) was an American geneticist and embryologist. melanogaster and reported his first finding of a white (eyed) mutant in 1910 to the academic community. He was in search of a model organism to study genetic heredity and required a species that could randomly acquire genetic mutation that would visibly manifest as morphological changes in the adult animal. His work on Drosophila earned him the 1933 Nobel Prize in Medicine for identifying chromosomes as the vector of inheritance for genes. The Nobel Prize (Nobelpriset (Nobelprisen is a Swedish prize established in the 1895 will of Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel; it was first awarded in Peace, Literature A chromosome is an organized structure of DNA and Protein that is found in cells.

However, some species of Drosophila are difficult to culture in the laboratory, often because they breed on a single specific host in the wild. For some it can be done with particular recipes for rearing media, or by introducing chemicals such as sterols that are found in the natural host; for others it is (so far) impossible. Sterols, or steroid alcohols are a subgroup of Steroids with a Hydroxyl group at the 3-position of the A-ring In some cases, the larvae can develop on normal Drosophila lab medium but the female will not lay eggs; for these it is often simply a matter of putting in a small piece of the natural host to receive the eggs. The Drosophila Stock Center in Tucson maintains cultures of hundreds of species for researchers. Tucson (ˈtuːsɒn is the seat of Pima County Arizona, United States, located 118 miles (188 km) southeast

Predators

Drosophila are prey for many generalist predators such as robber flies. Insects in the Diptera family Asilidae are commonly called robber flies. In Hawaii, the introduction of yellowjackets from the mainland United States has led to the decline of many of the large species. The State of Hawaii ( or həˈwaɪʔiː Hawaiian: Mokuāina o Hawaii) is a state in the United States located on an Archipelago in the Vespula is a small Genus of social Wasps widely distributed in the Northern Hemisphere. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the The larvae are preyed on by other fly larvae, staphylinid beetles, and ants. The rove beetles are a large family ( Staphylinidae) of Beetles primarily distinguished by their short Elytra that leave more than half of their Beetles are the group of Insects with the largest number of known Species. Ants are social Insects of the family Formicidae and along with the related families of Wasps and Bees belong to the order

Systematics

The genus Drosophila as currently defined is paraphyletic (see below) and contains 1450 described species,^[3][4] while the estimated total number of species is estimated at thousands. A genus (plural genera from Γένος Latin genus "descent family type gender" is a low-level Taxonomic In Phylogenetics, a group of organisms is said to be paraphyletic if the group contains its most recent common ancestor but does not contain all ^[5] The majority of the species are members of two subgenera: Drosophila (~1,100 species) and Sophophora (including D. (S.) melanogaster; ~330 species). In Biology, a species is one of the basic units of Biological classification and a Taxonomic rank. The Subgenus Sophophora of the Genus Drosophila was first described by Alfred Sturtevant in 1939 Drosophila melanogaster (from the Greek for black-bellied dew-lover) is a two-winged insect that belongs to the Diptera, the order The Hawaiian species of Drosophila (estimated to be more than 500, with ~380 species described) are sometimes recognized as a separate genus or subgenus, Idiomyia,^[3] but this is not widely accepted. About 250 species are part of the genus Scaptomyza, which arose from the Hawaiian Drosophila and later re-colonized continental areas.

Evidence from phylogenetic studies suggests that the following genera arose from within the genus Drosophila:

• Hirtodrosophila Duda, 1923
• Mycodrosophila Oldenburg, 1914
• Zaprionus Coquillett, 1901
• Samoaia Malloch, 1934
• Liodrosophila Duda, 1922
• Dichaetophora Duda, 1940
• Scaptomyza Hardy, 1849

Several of the subgeneric and generic names are based on anagrams of Drosophila. These include:

• Dorsilopha
• Lordiphosa
• Siphlodora
• Phloridosa
• Psilodorha

Drosophila species genome project

Drosophila are extensively used as a model organism in genetics (including population genetics), cell-biology, biochemistry, and especially developmental biology. Therefore, extensive efforts are made to sequence drosphilid genomes. The genomes of the following species have been fully or partially sequenced so far:

• Drosophila (Sophophora) melanogaster [1]
• Drosophila (Sophophora) simulans [2]
• Drosophila (Sophophora) sechellia [3]
• Drosophila (Sophophora) yakuba [4]
• Drosophila (Sophophora) erecta [5]
• Drosophila (Sophophora) ananassae [6]
• Drosophila (Sophophora) pseudoobscura [7]
• Drosophila (Sophophora) persimilis [8]
• Drosophila (Sophophora) willistoni [9]
• Drosophila (Drosophila) mojavensis [10]
• Drosophila (Drosophila) virilis [11]
• Drosophila (Drosophila) grimshawi [12]

The data will be used for many purposes, including evolutionary genome comparisons. Drosophila melanogaster (from the Greek for black-bellied dew-lover) is a two-winged insect that belongs to the Diptera, the order Drosophila simulans is a species of fly closely related to D melanogaster and which belongs to the same ''melanogaster'' species subgroup The Drosophila melanogaster Species subgroup contains 9 species including the best known species Drosophila melanogaster and The Drosophila melanogaster Species subgroup contains 9 species including the best known species Drosophila melanogaster and The Drosophila melanogaster Species subgroup contains 9 species including the best known species Drosophila melanogaster and The Drosophila melanogaster Species group belongs to the subgenus Sophophora and contains 12 subgroups Drosophila pseudoobscura is a Species of fruit fly, used extensively in lab studies of Speciation. D. simulans and D. sechellia are sister species, and provide viable offspring when crossed, while D. melanogaster and D. simulans produce infertile hybrid offspring. In Biology, hybrid has two meanings The first meaning is the result of interbreeding between two animals or plants of different taxa. The Drosophila genome is often compared with the genomes of more distantly related species such as the honeybee Apis mellifera or the mosquito Anopheles gambiae. This article refers collectively to all true honey bees for the "common" domesticated honey bee see European honey bee Honey bees Mosquitoes are insects in the family Culicidae. They have a pair of scaled wings a pair of Halteres, a slender body and long legs Anopheles gambiae, refers to a complex of morphologically indistinguishable Mosquitoes in the genus Anopheles, which contains

Curated data are available at FlyBase. FlyBase is an online Bioinformatics Database of the biology and genome of the Model organism Drosophila melanogaster and related Drosophilid

See also

• Drosophila embryogenesis

External links

• Fly Base FlyBase is a comprehensive database for information on the genetics and molecular biology of Drosophila. Drosophila has long been a favorite model system for geneticists and developmental biologists studying Embryogenesis. It includes data from the Drosophila Genome Projects and data curated from the literature.
• Berkeley Drosophila Genome Project
• AAA: Assembly, Alignment and Annotation of 12 Drosophila species
• UCSC Genome browser
• TaxoDros: The database on Taxonomy of Drosophilidae
• Tucson Drosophila Stock Center breeds hundreds of species and supplies them to researchers
• FlyMine is an integrated database of genomic, expression and protein data for Drosophila

References