| dc.description.abstract | Body size and allometry of body parts in animals are subjected to both environmental perturbation and natural selection for local adaptation, and also interplay with other traits, such as body color. Here, we used Drosophila elegans, which exhibits black or brown color morphs in the north and south of its species range, and Drosophila gunungcola, which exhibits black color morphs, as models to study the relationship between local environment and body size, measured by several body length parameters (wings length, wings width, femur length, and tibia length). Significant variations in body size were found in the natural populations in both species. In D. elegans, black-morphed flies exhibiting from Taiwan are larger than brown-morphed flies from Java and Sumatra. Overall, the body size of populations from higher latitude or higher elevation were found to be larger. Also, we found that the wing ratio (wing length/wing width) is less variable than the foreleg ratio (femur/tibia), suggesting that the maintenance of certain wing shape is more important. In addition, the body size of isofemale lines are significantly variable, indicating that both the genetic and environmental variations contribute to the body size variation found in natural populations. Furthermore, the body color and body size in recombinant inbred lines of D. elegans were found to genetically correlated, suggesting that these two traits may be influenced by closely-linked or pleiotropic genes. | en_US |