Presenter: Tyler Burke, BYU, Plant and Wildlife Sciences
Authors: Tyler Burke
Faculty Advisor: John Chaston, BYU, Plant and Wildlife Science
Institution: Brigham Young University
Life history traits are the survival and reproductive behaviors of organisms. They describe the observed biological variation between different organisms (interindividual variation) and within the same organism (intraindividual variation) in an environment. However, a major remaining question is what causes this individual variation. Because many important life history traits like starvation resistance or lifespan can only be measured destructively (postmortem); in this study, I aim to address the gap between destructive sampling and intraindividual variation, by testing if the feeding rates of individuals, which are commonly correlated with their other life history traits, can predict individual variation in these important traits. For this work, I will use the fruit fly, Drosophila. melanogaster, as a model. Using an established fly feeding assay, I will analyze feeding rates in individual flies across their lifetime. I will then compare the variance between intraindividual and interindividual feeding rates to test if feeding rate is static or variable. If static, I will compare feeding rate with variance in starvation resistance of the same flies for which feeding rate measures were made. Altogether, these results will test if feeding rate is a viable non-destructive indicator of intraindividual variation in D. melanogaster.