Graduation Semester and Year

2005

Language

English

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Biology

Department

Biology

First Advisor

Jeremy Marshall

Abstract

Organismal fitness is affected by environmental and genetic factors. More importantly, an interaction between an individual's genotype and current environmental conditions influences the success of that individual in its environment. Significant geographic and environmental correlates of allele frequencies at the Idh-1 locus, combined with a significant genotype-by-environment (GxE) interaction between Idh-1 genotype and temperature that affected fitness of Allonemobius socius, support the hypothesis that allele distributions in this species are the result of natural selection on performance of different genotypes at different temperatures. Additionally, I found that an interaction between parental diapause history and egg-incubation temperature affected the proportion of diapause eggs produced by A. socius. Furthermore, the offspring of non-diapause parents were more likely to respond to the effects of temperature changes than were offspring of diapausing parents. The results of these studies suggest a complex interaction between genotype, maternal effects, and the environment affects fitness in this species.

Disciplines

Biology | Life Sciences

Comments

Degree granted by The University of Texas at Arlington

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