Climatic adaptations for mating strategies in altitudinally varying populations of Drosophila melanogaster

In the present work, we investigated whether there are clinal variations for mating related traits and body melanisation in D. melanogaster of origin of six altitudinal populations from Indian subcontinent. We observed positive clinal variations for body melanisation and negative cline was evident for mating speed. However, copulation duration and fecundity is positively associated with increase in altitude Mating speed of highland populations are faster (~1.89 fold) as compared with lowland populations and copulation duration and number of eggs produced are also higher in D. melanogaster populations from high altitudinal localities. Further, analysis based on within and between populations resulted significant associations between percent melanisation with mating related traits i.e. copulation duration and fecundity are positively correlated with percent melanisation but negatively correlated with mating speed.Thus, our data suggest climatic adaptation for mating related traits with changes in altitude in D. melanogaster populations. A B S T R A C T