High-fat and high-sugar diets induce rapid adaptations of fat storage in the house fly Musca domestica L

Dietary change can be a strong evolutionary force and lead to rapid adaptation in organisms. High-fat and high-sugar diets can challenge key metabolic pathways, negatively affecting other life-history traits and inducing pathologies such as obesity and diabetes. In this study, we use experimental evolution to investigate the plastic and evolutionary responses to nutritionally unbalanced diets. We reared replicated lines of larvae of the housefly Musca domestica on a fat-enriched (FAT), a sugar-enriched (SUG), and a control (CTRL) diet for thirteen generations. We measured development time in each generation, and larval growth and fat accumulation in generations 1, 7, and 13. Subsequently, all lines were reared for one generation on the control diet to detect any plastic and evolutionary changes. In the first generation, time to pupation decreased on a fat-rich diet and increased on a sugar-rich diet. The fat-rich diet increased fat accumulation and, to a lesser extent, the dry weight of..., This dataset has been collected at generations 1, 7,  and 13 of long-term experimental evolution. The data are the raw body mass weighings before and after ether extraction, the calculated fat content (the mass difference between the two weighings), and relative fat content (fat content divided by dry body mass before ether extraction). We also measured the temperature of the growth substrate in Celsius., , # High-fat and high-sugar diets induce rapid adaptations of fat storage in the house fly Musca domestica L

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.z612jm6mk](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.z612jm6mk)

*Authors:* Francesco Boatta, F.†; Jurgen van Hal; Leo W. Beukeboom; Jacintha Ellers

†Francesco Boatta collected the data and wrote the code

(related manuscript to be Published in Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 2024).

### Files and variables

**Description:** 

#### File: EXPEVO\_BIOCONV\_F12\_R.csv

**Description:** This is the R.script used to obtain the statistics and the figures

##### Variables:

| Acronym | Type | Values | Full name | Explanation |
| :-------- | :------ | :-------------- | :------------------- | :----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------...