Osmoregulation in Insects

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Animals lose water through a variety of avenues, including evaporation from the skin surface, respiratory water loss and excretory water loss. It has long been known that insects may be particularly vulnerable to rapid water loss due to their small size and their occurrence in dry environments, including (stored grain, deserts, saline waters, etc.). This project includes studies on the mechanisms of water regulation in populations of the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, which have undergone selection for more than 200 generations for increased resistance to dry environments. Use of fruit flies that have undergone selection for resistance to dry environments provides several experimental advantages. Selection leads to large physiological differences in a single species, allowing detailed physiological comparisons to be carried out. The history of the populations is known, as is the timing of the processes by which the physiological changes have occurred. Finally by conducting these studies with fruit flies, a vast array of molecular and genetic techniques becomes available for studying the mechanisms of water regulation in insects. Such work may be very helpful in developing techniques for interfering with water balance in insect pest species, in the production of new non-toxic insecticides, and in the discovery of novel insect control strategies.