Determination of Fitness Components of Flies Bearing the Recessive Lethal l(2)M167DTS Mutation with Dominant Heat Sensitivity in Artificial Drosophila melanogaster Populations

Elimination of the heat-sensitive l(2)M167^DTS mutation from artificial Drosophila melanogaster populations at constant temperature 25°C and various frequencies of the mutation in the parental generation was studied. Components of fitness of the l(2)M167^DTS mutation were estimated in the artificial populations by means of the recurrent model of the dependence of the frequency of this mutation in a given generation on its frequency in the previous generation. The model was solved by a numerical method with limitations on the values of some fitness components obtained in test experiments. According to the limitations and frequencies of the l(2)M167^DTS mutation, the leading role and limits of the variation in egg-to-adult viability and female fertility were determined. The previously suggested effect of the positive selection for viability of individuals heterozygous for l(2)M167^DTS was confirmed.__________Translated from Genetika, Vol. 41, No. 6, 2005, pp. 767–777.Original Russian Text Copyright © 2005 by Kulikov, Kuznetsov, Marec, Mitrofanov.