Drosophila melanogaster strain:SIM Variation

Evolutionary biologists seek to understand the factors affecting genetic variation. While it is intuitive that environmental heterogeneity should increase levels of variation, theoretical models showed that spatial and temporal heterogeneity differ in how likely they are to maintain polymorphisms affecting fitness. We evolved experimental populations of fruit flies in constant environments or in temporally or spatially varying environments, then examined levels of sequence variation across the genome.