Spatial heterogeneity in resources alters selective dynamics in Drosophila melanogaster

Environmental features can alter the behaviours and phenotypes of organisms evolving within them influencing the dynamics of natural and sexual selection. Experimental environmental manipulation, particularly when conducted in experiments where the dynamics of the purging of deleterious alleles are compared, has demonstrated both direct and indirect effects on the strength and direction of selection. However, many of these experiments are conducted with fairly simplistic environments when it is not always clear how or why particular forms of spatial heterogeneity influence behaviour or selection. Using Drosophila melanogaster, we tested three different spatial environments designed to determine if spatial constraint of critical resources influences the efficiency of natural and sexual selection. We conducted two allele purging experiments to 1) assess effects of these spatial treatments on selective dynamics of six recessive mutations, and 2) determine how these dynamics changed when se...