Fruit Fly Lab

Our experiment consisted of a group of fruit flies with two different phenotypes. Our assumption was that the eye color trait is sex-linked and the wing trait is straight dominance in fruit flies. We observed the offspring of the fruit flies to determine the method of contribution of alleles: Straight Dominance, or Sex-Linked. During a cross of the White eyed females (XwXw) and Red eyed males (Xw+Y), the F1 generation consisted of all the females being Red eyed (Xw+Xw) and all the males being White eyed (XwY). The expression of the red eye color infers that the allele given by the father overrides that of the mother, hinting at straight dominance. Because all males possessed the same phenotype as the females in the P Generation, we are forced to conclude that the mother is homozygous for the trait. We can infer further that the females are homozygous recessive due to our previous hypothesis that the fathers possess a dominant allele in comparison to the mothers. P Generation F1 Generation F2 Generation XwXw Xw+Xw 100% 248 Xw+Xw & 252 XwXw Xw+Y XwY 100% 247 Xw+Y & 253 XwY

After a self-cross that produced 100 offspring, we saw that 50% of the progeny had red eyes and the other 50% had white. 50% of those females and males would have red eyes as well as the other 50% would have white eyes. This left us with approximately Red eyed females, Red eyed males, White eyed females, White eyed males. This proves our assumption that the trait was sexlinked because there is a 1:1 ratio of the offspring of a sex-linked trait being expressed or not in males, as well as females when the mother is a heterozygous carrier and the father is hemizygous recessive. The Parent Generation consisted of two phenotypes as well. True breeding Normal winged females (vg+vg+) and vestigial winged males (vgvg). Only one phenotype, the normal winged phenotype, was expressed in the F1 generation. This led us to believe that the F1 generation consists of heterozygotes where the Normal winged allele is dominant. However, after we crossbred the F1 generation, the offspring with the vestigial wing phenotype were shown in significantly fewer numbers. The lessened presence of recombinants in the F2 generation in comparison to the parentals leads us to believe there is genetic linkage in respect to the Normal winged allele. P Generation Vg+vg+ Vgvg

F1 Generation F2 Generation

Vg+vg 135 vg+__ & 36 vgvg

Vg+vg 122 vg+__ & 30 vgvg

In the last cross of the experiment, we combined fruit flies with white and red eyes, normal and vestigial winged. The P Generation consisted of white eyed, normal winged females (XwXw|vg+vg+) and red eyed, vestigial winged males (Xw+Y|vgvg). The F1 Generation consisted of red eyed, normal winged females (Xw+Xw|vg+vg) and white eyed normal winged males (XwY|vg+vg). The F2 Generation was composed of eight different results. P Generation XwXw|vg+vg+ Xw+Y|vgvg F1 Generation Xw+Xw|vg+vg XwY|vg+vg Our presumed, expected results are listed in the table below. F2 Generation Xw+Xw XwXw Xw+Y Vg+___ 3/8 3/8 3/8 vgvg 1/8 1/8 1/8 The actual results of the offspring: F2 Generation Xw+Xw XwXw Vg+__ 190 185 vgvg 63 61

XwY 3/8 1/8

Xw+Y 189 60

XwY 186 64

The results of the vestigial vs the normal winged trait showed to express the classic Mendelian ratio of 3:1 and the eye color trait functioned exactly how we expected a sex-linked trait to do. To further the validity of the experiment, we performed the Chi-Square test. Given two Degrees of Freedom, our calculated X2 value was significantly smaller than the table X2 value, allowing us to accept the collected data as a satisfactory fit.