Adaptation of Drosophila melanogaster to Long Photoperiods of High-Latitude Summers Is Facilitated by the ls-Timeless Allele ...

• Main Authors: Deppisch, Peter, Prutscher, Johanna M., Pegoraro, Mirko, Tauber, Eran, Wegener, Christian, Helfrich-Förster, Charlotte
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: SAGE Journals 2022
• Subjects: 110306 Endocrinology; FOS: Clinical medicine; 69999 Biological Sciences not elsewhere classified; FOS: Biological sciences; Neuroscience; Arctic
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.25384/sage.c.5904262; https://sage.figshare.com/collections/Adaptation_of_i_Drosophila_melanogaster_i_to_Long_Photoperiods_of_High-Latitude_Summers_Is_Facilitated_by_the_i_ls-Timeless_i_Allele/5904262

Circadian clocks help animals to be active at the optimal time of the day whereby for most species the daily light-dark cycle is the most important zeitgeber for their circadian clock. In this respect, long arctic summer days are particularly challenging as light is present almost 24 h per day, and continuous light makes the circadian clocks of many animals arrhythmic. This is especially true for the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster , which possesses a very light-sensitive clock. The blue-light photoreceptor Cryptochrome (CRY) and the clock protein Timeless (TIM) are the light-sensitive components of the circadian clock and are responsible for constant light-induced arrhythmicity even at very low light intensities. Nevertheless, D. melanogaster was able to spread from its tropical origin and invade northern latitudes. Here, we tested whether a natural polymorphism at the timeless ( tim ) locus, s-tim and ls-tim , helped adaptation to very long photoperiods. The recently evolved natural allele, ls-tim , ...