User talk:Shelleybwallace/sandbox

White-Eyed Mutation
Drosophila melanogaster Wild Type typically expresses a brick red eye color. In January of 1910, Thomas Hunt Morgan first discovered the white gene and denoted it as w. The discovery of the white-eye mutation by Morgan brought about the beginnings of genetic experimentation and analysis of Drosophila melanogaster. Hunt eventually discovered that the gene followed a similar pattern of inheritance related to the meiotic segregation of the X chromosome. He discovered that the gene was located on the X chromosome with this information. This led to the discovery of sex-linked genes and also to the discovery of other mutations in Drosophila melanogaster.

The white-eye mutation leads to several disadvantages in the flies that possess it. It was found that the greater the density in eye pigmentation, the greater the success in mating for the male population of Drosophila melanogaster. This had more to do with courtship, rather than vision, as vision does profoundly affect one’s ability to mate. It has also been observed the white-eye mutants suffered from a reduced climbing ability, shortened life span, and lowered resistance to stress than those with Wild Type eye color.

The Drosophila melanogaster species is known to have a series of mating behaviors that attribute to their fitness and enable them to successfully copulate within an environment. The courting behaviors of males have to be specific to females response in order for reproduction to be initiated. The mating behaviors of Drosophila melanogaster can be significantly associated with allelic differentiation within its chromosomes. After Morgan’s discovery of the white-eye mutation being sex-linked, a study lead by Sturtevant (1915)  concluded that white-eyed males were less successful then wild-type males in terms of mating with females. However, although this would suggests that differentiation of alleles can affect behavior during copulation, further studies can be conducted to better assess how the white-eye mutation affects the species behaviors.