Fruit Fly Lab Report

The motivation of this lab report is to use Mendel’s Laws of Inheritance to analyze and predict the genotypes and phenotypes of an offspring generation (F2) after knowing the genotypes and phenotypes of the parent generation (F1). The hypothesis for this experiment is that the mode of inheritance for the shaven bristle allele in flies is autosomal recessive in both male and female flies.

The conducted experiment assists in determining an unknown mutant allele found in Drosophila melanogatser. Mutant 489 illustrates a defect in eye pigmentation, which displays a dark brown eye color verses the brick red eyes in wild type flies. Based on the appearance our 489 mutation we've names our mutant rust.

Introduction: The intention of this lab was to gain a better understanding of Mendelian genetics and inheritance patterns of the drosophila fruit fly. This was tasked through inspecting phenotypes present in the dihybrid crosses performed on the flies. An experimental virtual fly lab assignment was also used to analyze the inheritance patterns. Specifically, the purpose of our drosophila crosses is to establish which phenotypes are dominant/recessive, if the traits are inherited through autosome or sex chromosomes and whether independent assortment or linkage is responsible for the expressed traits.

It was decided that there would be 80 vestigial flies and 20 wild type flies to total to an initial population of 100 drosophila. Next, the flies were anesthetized flies using Fly Nap. The flies were counted out to reach desired ratio, sexing the flies making sure there are equal amounts of males and females to be sure there is ample individuals to allow successful mating. The fly’s food was prepared by taking a frozen rotten banana, cutting it in half, mashing up the banana meat, and mixing yeast into it. The

melanogaster, leaving B and D to be our mutants. Before crossing our populations, we made not of each one’s phenotype in order to see how crossing them would affect their phenotypes: Population B flies had no wings and red eyes, population D had full wings and black eyes and population G had full wings and red eyes. We expected the resulting phenotypes to be some sort of combination, revealing which traits were dominant. However, what we did not expect was the abnormal mutant that arose in a couple of our populations.

The results of this cross was that there were thirty eight wild-type females and thirty five wild-type males. Therefore there were seventy three wild-type flies. There were sixteen no-winged mutant males and eleven no-winged mutant females. Therefore there was a total of twenty seven no-winged flies produced in this cross. The observed phenotypic ratio of wild-type flies and no-winged mutant flies was 2.7:1 (winged: no-winged).The predicted phenotypic ratio if the no-winged mutation was autosomal recessive would be 3:1 (winged: no-winged). The χ2 value obtained for this cross was 0.213. The p value that was obtained for this cross was

METHODS: In this experiment, the instructor provided us with 30 ebony individuals and 20 wild type individuals. In order to get an exact amount of each type, we anesthetized the flies and counted them off by gently using a fine point paint brush. Then all 50 Drosophila were put into a population cage which had a lid that had six holes for the centrifuge tubes. Two food tubes and four clean, empty tubes were added on the first day. Each food tube consisted of half a cup full of food mixed with 6-7 milliliters of water. This was the fly medium. The food should turn blue once the water is added. Each tube was labeled with a number and with the date. Every two to three days we added one more food tube until all 6 tubes contained the fly medium. After all 6 tubes were filled, the following days after we exchanged the first food tube with a new food tube. At the end of the experiment, we fed the flies with a total of 8 food tubes. Then the flies were anesthetized, again. At the end of this four week lab, the number of living ebony and wild

Two sepia virgin drosophila females and five, dumpy drosophila are put in a vial containing agar. Nap was used to anesthetize the flies. After a week f1 had laid eggs and f1 pupas were visible. Parents were removed from vial. A week later the drosophila f1 had developed and were analyzed and counted.

It would be expected that the mutant F1 flies would be heterozygous for the allele responsible for the grounded trait. If two F1 flies were mated, the percentage of flies that would be expected to be wildtype in the F2 generation would be 25% mutants given that the mutant allele (ap) is predicted to be recessive and, leaving 75% to be wildtype (ap+).

we said goodbye and placed them in the fly morgue. We allowed the F2 larval

This experiment looks at the relationship between genes, generations of a population and if genes are carried from one generation to another. By studying Drosophila melanogaster, starting with a parent group we crossed a variety of flies and observe the characteristics of the F1 generation. We then concluded that sex-linked genes and autosomal genes could indeed be traced through from the parent generation to the F1 generation.

The parents are both homozygous. The homozygous dominant would represent the wild type. And the homozygous recessive would represent the other fly parent of a different strain. The F1 generation would consist of 100% Wild Type but they would all be heterozygous in carrying the recessive gene.

To test to see if evolution is taking place the Hardy-Weinberg Principle will be used. This equation allows us to predict future allele frequencies based on the current alleles frequencies if no evolution were taking place. This means if the observed frequencies differ from the expected frequencies some form of evolution must have taken place. The Hardy-Weinberg Principle has many conditions that must be met to ensure no evolution is taking place, if the observed and expected results do not match then one of those conditions was not met. Other deviations from Hardy-Weinberg may result from inbreeding, population stratification and sexual selection (Balding, 2006). This leads to the hypothesis in that due to a small initial population size of 20 flies not all of the conditions for Hardy-Weinberg will be met resulting in evolution taking

Throughout this experiment a number of random and procedural errors were apparent; these errors could have affected the results of the experiment in a number of ways. One experimental error that occurred during the experiment was that some flies became stuck in the food source and died. The main cause of this was the fact that the fly vials were stood up (vertically) before the flies had fully recovered from the anaesthetic. This could be overcome in future experiments by ensuring that the vials are kept horizontal until all of the flies fully recover from the anaesthetic.

For our first generation (F1) of flies we chose to cross apterous (+) females and white-eye (w) males. We predicted that the mutation would be sex linked recessive. So if the female was the sex with the mutation then all females would be wild type heterozygous. Heterozygous is a term used when the two genes for a trait are opposite. The males would all be white eye since they only have one X chromosome. If the males were the sex that had the mutation then all the flies would be wild type but the females would be heterozygous.