title: On the Long-term Stability of Clines in Some Metabolic Genes in Drosophila melanogaster.
abstract: Very little information exists for long-term changes in genetic variation in natural populations. Here we take the unique opportunity to compare a set of data for SNPs in 15 metabolic genes from eastern US collections of Drosophila melanogaster that span a large latitudinal range and represent two collections separated by 12 to 13 years. We also expand this to a 22-year interval for the Adh gene and approximately 30 years for the G6pd and Pgd genes. During these intervals, five genes showed a statistically significant change in average SNP allele frequency corrected for latitude. While much remains unchanged, we see five genes where latitudinal clines have been lost or gained and two where the slope significantly changes. The long-term frequency shift towards a southern favored Adh S allele reported in Australia populations is not observed in the eastern US over a period of 21 years. There is no general pattern of southern-favored or northern-favored alleles increasing in frequency across the genes. This observation points to the fluid nature of some allelic variation over this time period and the action of selective responses or migration that may be more regional than uniformly imposed across the cline.
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecology and Evolution, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York, 11794 USA.
authors.forename: Rodrigo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Cogni
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecology and Evolution, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York, 11794 USA.
authors.forename: Kate
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kuczynski
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecology and Evolution, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York, 11794 USA.
authors.forename: Spencer
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Koury
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecology and Evolution, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York, 11794 USA.
authors.forename: Erik
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Lavington
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
authors.forename: Emily L
authors.initials: EL
authors.lastname: Behrman
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
authors.forename: Katherine R
authors.initials: KR
authors.lastname: O'Brien
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
authors.forename: Paul S
authors.initials: PS
authors.lastname: Schmidt
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecology and Evolution, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York, 11794 USA.
authors.forename: Walter F
authors.initials: WF
authors.lastname: Eanes
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D029721:Drosophila Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D004331:Drosophila melanogaster / Q000235:genetics*; D005787:Gene Frequency; D020641:Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide; D012641:Selection, Genetic
chemical_list: D029721:Drosophila Proteins