Drosophila Melanogaster
Introduction
The purpose of the experiment that has been conducted is to breed Drosophila melanogaster for specific traits. We used a dihybrid cross where the traits were sex linked. The cross is considered dihybrid due to the fact that we are crossing two different traits. The traits used for this dihybrid cross experiment are white eyes (w) and vestigial wings (vg). The white eyes are the sex linked trait. These traits were taken and crossed with wild type D. melanogaster.
The experiment that we ran was to be completed by April 20, 2006. There are three other people that I worked with in this experiment, Melissa Broadway, Kelli Hand, and Erin Hill. Kelli and I did a cross that involved wild type/vestigial winged males and white eye/wild type females (fig. 1, 3, 4). Melissa and Erin did the reciprocal cross, which is white eye/wild type males and wild type/vestigial winged females (fig.2, 5, 6). When doing this dihybrid cross, Kelli and my results should have yielded a 3:3:1:1 ratio (wild type, white eye/wild type, wild type/vestigial wing, and white eye/vestigial wing) because our cross was sex linked in favor of the white eyes. Melissa and Erin's results were expected to be a ratio of 9:3:3:1, being wild type, wild type eye/vestigial wing, white eye/wild type wing, and white eye/vestigial wing, respectively.
Drosophila melanogaster are the simple breed of fruit flies that have been selected for the experiment. The life cycle of these organisms is not long, only lasting 50 days from birth. The life cycle from birth to adulthood is only 10-14 days. There are four distinct stages in the life cycle of Drosophila melanogaster. The first is being an egg, and this stage lasts for one day. The second stage is being larva and this lasts for six days. There are three sub-levels of this stage being the first-third instar. The third stage is when the D. melanogaster turns into a pupa, which lasts about 3-4 days. The...
Please login to view the full essay...