Costas B. Krimbas Drosophila suboscura

About this book

Drosophila subobscura Collin, a member of the obscura group of species of the subgenus Sophophora, was until recently encountered only in Europe and its adjacent areas in the palearctic region, being in many countries one of the common species. It was apparently for this reason that it was widely used in studies of genetics, population genetics, ecology, insect physiology, behaviour and biology in general by several research groups or individual scientists in Europe; in this sense it is considered the European counterpart of its American relatives, Drosophila pseudoobscura and Drosophila persimilis.

More than ten years ago, Drosophila subobscura started colonizing South and North America, and spread quickly into large areas of these continents. As a result, it attracted the attention of American scientists as well. It is therefore expected that in the future both European and American scientists will extensively use it as experimental material in evolutionary and other studies. It thus seems desirable to review the voluminous work already accomplished by European scientists on different aspect of the species:

Taxonomic and phylogenetic position
• Geographical distribution and abundance
• Ecology: larval breeding sites, adult preferences, seasonal   fluctuations in population size, demographic and biological   parameters, parasites
• Behavioural characteristics: daily rhythms, dispersion-orientation-  habitat choice, mating behaviour
• Genetics and cytology
• The inversion polymorphism
• Geographical distribution of gene arrangements
• Inversion polymorphism, natural selection and historical process