The Daily Bulletin

Please join the Biology Department and the Great Lakes Center for the seminar “Impacts of sex ratio Meiotic drive on stalk eyed flies,” presented by Dr. Josie Reinhardt on Monday, March 17, at 3:00 p.m. in Bulger Communication Center 214. Attendees are welcome to arrive at 2:30 p.m. to enjoy coffee and cookies leading up to the seminar.

Research Seminar Abstract: Meiotic drivers are selfish genetic elements that violate the law of segregation, being passed to offspring at super-Mendelian ratios. In male stalk-eyed flies (Teleopsis dalmanni), an X-linked meiotic drive polymorphism drives at about 95% efficiency via a sperm-killing mechanism and is associated with reductions in length of male flies' sexual ornament (the eyestalk). We recently assembled and annotated a genome to map multiple inversions trapping variation on the drive X chromosome, and discovered a promising candidate gene for drive in a region of inversion overlap, a partial duplicate of a testes-expressed chromatin binding gene called JASPer. In addition, new whole genome sequencing evidence from a close relative indicates a likely shared origin of the drive X chromosome in these two species, despite earlier evidence suggesting distinct patterns of genetic divergence. Finally, we recently found evidence that drive male flies are more aggressive than their non-driving counterparts when matched for ornament size.