Investigating metabolite levels and stress responses of Drosophila melanogaster populations selected for increased dispersal

Abstract

Dispersal is an energy-intensive process. Therefore, selection for greater dispersal might lead to changes in the body composition, resulting in altered stress responses of the organisms. However, it is not known how dispersal selection can alter the storage of metabolites like protein, lipid, and glycogen across age. In this study, we investigated how the levels of lipid, protein, and glycogen change across age and how that correlates with stress responses in D. melanogaster populations selected for increased dispersal. We found that dispersal selection at an early age led to an increase in the glycogen and triglyceride levels of the organism at later ages. However, there were no discernible patterns in the variation of protein content across age. We also found that increased dispersal increased the chance of survival after a heat shock and lowered the desiccation resistance of the organism in both males and females. Increased dispersal also decreased the starvation resistance and increased the chill coma recovery time in males; however, the patterns were not so clear for the females. We also found that dispersal selected populations show a sexual dimorphism for survival after a cold shock.