Kurt Worthmann
April 21st, 2010
Biology 2: Concepts in Genetics
Professor: Dr. Tacka
Drosophila Lab Report
The Drosophila Project
Abstract
Drosophila melanogaster is a small fruit fly that feeds on and lives around spoiled fruit. It is one of the most valuable organisms in genetics research and developmental biology. Drosophila’s are popularly used in studying traits because they are practical, small and have a short life cycle of about two weeks (Manning et al, 2006). We are demonstrating exactly how Drosophila melanogaster are used to identify mechanisms of transmission genetics in eukaryotes. F1 and F2 generations were obtained by performing simple parental crosses. This was done so we could determine the mode of inheritance of the genetic trait of eye color. The mode of inheritance was different for all of the crosses but all deal with Mendel’s principles. Our results from the chi square analysis data all showed signs of our observed dating matching almost exactly to our expected data. We were able to accept our null hypothesis for all crosses.
Intro
Drosophila melanogaster are very useful tools in the study of genetics. In this experiment we are hoping to determine phenotypic ratios and dominant vs. recessive traits by cross breeding two different types of Drosophila; such as wild type mutant (red eye) with white eye drosophila and wild type mutant (red eye) with sepia eye drosophila. Drosophilas are most commonly used organism in genetic labs because they have a short life span and genetically speaking they are a very simple organism. The mode of inheritance among traits is easy to figure out as well by applying simple Mendelian tools in this organism. Nothing about Drosophila is complicating, they have very definable features and telling females apart from males is simple. Drosophilas are popular because they can live in many different climates, they can be found on every single continent except for Antarctica. These reasons...