MULTIPLE GENETIC MECHANISMS FOR THE EVOLUTION OF SENESCENCE IN DROSOPHILA MELANOGASTER

We present the results of selection experiments designed to distinguish between antagonistic pleiotropy and mutation accumulation, two mechanisms for the evolution of senescence. Reverse selection for early‐life fitness was applied to laboratory populations of Drosophila melanogaster that had been previously selected for late‐life fitness. These populations also exhibited reduced early‐age female fecundity and increased resistance to the stresses of starvation, desiccation, and ethanol, when compared to control populations. Reverse selection was carried out at both uncontrolled, higher larval rearing density and at controlled, lower larval density. In the uncontrolled‐density selection lines, early‐age female fecundity increased to control‐population levels in response to the reintroduction of selection for early‐age fitness. Concomitantly, resistance to starvation declined in agreement with previous observations of a negative genetic correlation between these two characters and in accordance with the antagonistic‐pleiotropy mechanism. However, resistance to stresses of desiccation and ethanol did not decline in the uncontrolled‐density lines during 22 generations of reverse selection for early‐life fitness. The latter results provide evidence that mutation accumulation has also played a role in the evolution of senescence in this set of Drosophila populations. No significant response in early‐age fecundity or starvation resistance was observed in the controlled‐density reverse‐selection lines, supporting previous observations that selection on Drosophila life‐history characters is critically sensitive to larval rearing density.