Transcriptomics of thermal stress responses in Drosophila melanogaster

Temperature is one of the primary abiotic factors affecting performance, survival, fitness, and consequently the geographic distribution of species. Response to thermal stress involves dynamic shifts in gene expression, but previous work has not characterized the extent to which genetic variation in whole-organism thermal tolerance is associated with the transcriptomic response to temperature stress. Here, we use a combination of Genome Wide Association mapping (GWAS) and transcriptomic profiling to clarify the potential function of genes with polymorphisms associated with thermal tolerance.