Environmental Change Uncovers Differences in Polygenic Effect of Chromosomes from a Natural Population of Drosophila melanogaster

Polygenic variation of sternopleural bristle number was investigated at the whole chromosome level in a natural population of Drosophila melanogasfer. Fifty pairs of second and third chromosomes were analyzed at $25^\circ{C}$. Since environmental factors such as temperature influence polygenic expression of quantitative traits, whole chromosomal effects of 28 pairs from the larger original sample were measured under cycling temperature, a $10-30\circ{C}$ cycle in 24 hours, to reveal any polygenic alleles whose effects might be masked under the constant temperature. While third chromosomes typically showed a larger contribution to polygenic variation in both environments, second chromosomes showed greater sensitivity to environmental changes. Cluster analyses of second and third chromosomes produced a limited number of clusters. Such a small number of cluster's implies that there may be a small number of genes, or quantitative trait loci (QTLs), having large effects on phenotypic variation. The genetic structure assessed under constant temperature, however, did not show any correlation with the structure under cycling temperature. The discrepancy could be caused by independent response of each polygenic allele to temperature changes. Thus, polygenic structure in natural populations should be thought of as a temporally changing profile of interactions between gene and ever-changing environment.