Genetic variation in behavioral and physiological response to environmental change

The ability of a population to evolutionarily adapt to environmental changes is in part mediated by the genetic variation within the population. Genetic variation allows for presence of alleles with varying fitness contributions, and researchers have sought to characterize how different evolutionary forces act to preserve genetic variation within and across different environments. By using modern genetic resources and methods of trait quantification, we can further understand how genetically diverse populations adapt to rapid changes in environment such as catastrophic natural disasters. In my dissertation, I study how elements of natural genetic variation present within the fruit fly model organism Drosophila melanogaster allow for variation in trait responses to rapid changes in environment. In my first chapter, I report how genetic variation in Drosophila results in differences in the physiological response to fasting. My second chapter tests the impacts cosmopolitan inversions have on physiology, behavior, life-history, and morphology, and identifies association mapping strategies that improve our ability to link phenotypic variation to inversions. My third chapter describes the role of a common inversion in the regulation of different aspects of behavior, and the environmental sensitivity of this relationship. Ultimately, my dissertation pushes forward the study of how genetic variation allows a range of responses to rapid environmental changes. Through genomic analysis and experimental validation, I further characterize our understanding of the role inversions play in altering traits, and additionally offer insights into how natural genetic variation can be considered during study design, especially when investigating traits and genomic regions associated with inversions.