U.S.-France Cooperative Research: Molecular Population Genetics of Old-World and New-World Drosophila

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9981452RandThis two-year award for U.S.-France collaboration in population and evolutionary biology involves David M. Rand and a postdoctoral researcher from Brown University and Michel Veuille of the University Marie et Pierre Curie in Paris, France. Their collaboration is aimed at an extensive characterization of genetic variation within and among Old World and New World populations of the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster and Drosophila simulans. It is believed that this species originated in Africa, spread to European locations and more recently colonized the New World. The presence of geographically dispersed populations offers a unique opportunity to test genetic variations that may have evolved over centuries. The investigators will focus their effort on collecting natural samples showing a cytonuclear polymorphism, a condition found in European, but not North American samples of D. melanogaster. They will test the hypothesis that cytonuclear fitness interactions are differed for X-linked nuclear locus versus autsomal-cytoplasmic locus. In addition they will test neutral models of population differentiation and molecular evolution. This award represents the U.S. side of a joint proposal to the NSF and the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS). NSF will cover travel funds and living expenses for the U.S. investigator and postdoctoral researcher to collect samples, prepare duplication accessions of samples and subsequently analyze them. The project will advance our understanding of how genetic variations may have evolved in old world and new world species.