A potential regulatory polymorphism upstream of hairy is not associated with bristle number variation in wild-caught Drosophila

Abstract

To extend results from laboratory genetic mapping experiments to natural populations it is necessary to estimate the phenotypic effects attributable to laboratory-identified genetic factors in nature. We retested a polymorphism found to be strongly associated with an increase of 0.35 sternopleural bristles in laboratory strains in two large samples of wild-caught Drosophila melanogaster. Despite >90% power to detect effects as low as 0.27 bristles (<1% of the total variation in bristle number) we did not replicate the association in nature. Potential explanations for this result are explored.