English Deutsch Français Italiano Español Português 繁體中文 Bahasa Indonesia Tiếng Việt ภาษาไทย
All categories

History of Drosophila (fruit fly)

Diagram of the anatomy of drosophila

Why is drosophila used for research ?

Why is drosophila used for genetics research ?

Describe at least one experiment that has been done using this organism.

2007-01-04 16:02:52 · 6 answers · asked by KOOLNE$$ 2 in Science & Mathematics Biology

6 answers

Drosophila is a genus of small insects known to most people as fruit flies. They are an ideal subject for research, especially genetic and evolutionary research, for a number of reasons. First, they have a very short life span and thus a short generation time and so a researcher can study a great many generations (and how genes are inherited and expresses in successive generations) in a short amount of time. Second, they are small organisms with simple nutritional requirements, so they are easy to care for in a laboratory. They will also breed readily in a lab environment and can produce many, many offspring. They also have a relatively simple genome, as compared to more complex animal like a mouse or rat, so their genes are easy to keep track of from one generation to the next. The last, and probably most important, reason they are used so much for genetic research is that they have easily distinguishable mutant alleles (or variations on "normal" genes) that are easy to track and study across generations. There are many, many experiments that have been done on Drosophila. The very first experiments done one them had to do with eye color and mutations that caused albinism in certain individuals. Some of the more recent and most interesting studies have to do with inheritance of genetic diseases and studying sexual selection (preferential choice of mates by one or both sexes). Here are some websites to help you out:

http://www.pitt.edu/~biohome/Dept/Frame/drosophila.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drosophila_melanogaster
http://www.ceolas.org/fly/intro.html
http://www.fruitfly.org/

Good luck with your homework...

2007-01-04 17:05:14 · answer #1 · answered by westley76 1 · 1 0

for the first 2 questions, hit up wikipedia. Drosophila was used in research because it was small, requiring very little food, and had a rapid generation turn over. Since Drosophila has a rather small genome that could easily be sequenced and it's genes identified, it became a prime target for gene manipulation. These flies are commonly used in classrooms to diagram pedigrees or to show trends in heredity like X-linked traits or dominant vs resessive phenotypes.

2007-01-04 16:24:57 · answer #2 · answered by Aaron H 1 · 1 0

drosophila is used for genetic research for a couple of reasons

1) it has an extremely short gestation and reproduction period. genetics can be studied extremely effectively through the study of generations, or the fly's "family tree."
2) drosophila has a genome that is very small and understood almost completely.
3) you can relate genes in the fruit fly to genes in other organisms, especially humans

2007-01-04 16:15:46 · answer #3 · answered by Brian J 1 · 1 0

Why not just type that in the yahoo search bar?

2007-01-04 16:08:55 · answer #4 · answered by Jay a 2 · 0 1

sorry no such organism

2007-01-04 16:05:32 · answer #5 · answered by secret society 6 · 0 1

cause they work cheap

2007-01-04 16:06:15 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0 1

fedest.com, questions and answers