Drosophila Evolution

Ever since Darwin, research in evolutionary biology has been trying to understand biodiversity - the great number of species in nature, each with features so well adapted to its environment. In our current understanding of evolution, the genes and the mutations responsible for phenotypic differences have no distinctive features: mutations occur randomly and a few of them happen to spread in populations through selection and chance. However, phenotypic evolution may not involve random genes and random mutations. There might be rules to be discovered about the mutations underlying evolution.

We are using a combination of various approaches to identify the mutations responsible for evolutionary changes between Drosophila species and to reconstruct past evolutionary events. We hope that our work will provide new and rigourous data to better understand our evolution, past and future.

Developping genitalia. copyright CNRS/IJM Virginie Orgogozo

 

Sélection of Publications

Stern DL, Orgogozo V, How different are recently diverged species?: more than 150 phenotypic differences have been reported for the D. melanogaster species subgroup.
Fly. 2009 Apr-Jun;3(2):117. Epub 2009 May 1
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Stern DL, Orgogozo V, Is genetic evolution predictable?
Science. 2009 Feb 6;323(5915):746-51.
Abstract

Stern DL, Orgogozo V, The loci of evolution: how predictable is genetic evolution?
Evolution. 2008 Sep;62(9):2155-77. Epub 2008 Jul 4.
Abstract

McGregor AP, Orgogozo V, Delon I, Zanet J, Srinivasan DG, Payre F, Stern DL, Morphological evolution through multiple cis-regulatory mutations at a single gene.
Nature. 2007 Aug 2;448(7153):587-90. Epub 2007 Jul 15.
Abstract

Orgogozo V, Broman KW, Stern DL, High-resolution QTL Mapping Reveals Sign Epistasis Controlling Ovariole Number between two Drosophila species.
Genetics. 2006 May;173(1):197-205.
Abstract

Last modified 09/ 9/2011

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