The Fruit Fly Experiment

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The fruit fly experiment is used as a way to introduce the study of genetics to students. It was first used by Thomas Morgan Hunt in 1910. The significance for using fruit flies, also known as Drosophila Melanogaster is because they’re great to work with in research scenery. They’re relatively easy to care for, especially when comparing to larger organisms like rats, or rabbits. They mate readily, take approximately two weeks to develop, and only carry four pair of chromosomes (Shanholtzer, 2012).
The extended life of an adult fruit fly is based on the temperature of its environment; for example at a 54°F the fruit fly’s life is averaged between 40 to 50 days (Ashburner, 2012). Female fruit flies are capable of mating and laying numerous sets of eggs which permits the fruit fly population to quickly multiply. The fruit fly’s life cycle starts soon as the female lays her eggs. The eggs then take about a day to hatch into the next stage, the larva (Shanholtzer, 2012). Once the larva molts and goes through the first, second and third instar, it hatches into the pupa which takes six days to reach the adult stage (Shanholtzer, 2012).
Fruit flies normally feast and bask on rotten fruits, although, it is possible for them to be found on old aged vegetables and other food (Ashburner, 2012). It is common for fruit flies to have red colored eyes usually referred to as Wild Type, but they sometime will mutate and have Brown eyes and are referred to as Sepia (Shanholtzer, 2012). For this experiment, the given flies or the F1 generation are hybrid for two traits, Normal or Black body, and Wild type eyes, which is dominant, or Sepia eyes that is recessive. The F1 generation is offspring of the parent P1 generation. The P1 generation consi...

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...here’s a possibility that the student did not ensure having the appropriate amount of fruit flies, or there could have been a mixed up with the genders. Some fruit flies could have drowned in the media; there also could have been errors when estimating for the calculation of offspring. For future experiment, another hypothesis could be taking into account the sex of the fruit fly, finding out whether or not the traits are sex-linked.
Although fruit fly are often overlooked and found as a huge frustration, according to Ashburner Michael, fruit flies with humans allot about 75% of the genes that cause diseases (2012). The fruit fly experiment could be used by scientists to acquire knowledge and definite how the human genetics operates. In other words this experiment can shine the light on how certain traits and diseases are transferred from one generation to another.

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