DON MARIANO MARCOS MEMORIAL STATE

UNIVERSITY
Mid La Union Campus
City of San Fernando,
La Union College of
Education
BACHELOR OF SECONDARY
EDUCATION

Final Requirement:

Drosophila melanogaster (Common Fruit Fly):

Compiled Observations and Documentation

Members:

Balanday. Vincent Nallana

Padaoan, Neil Vergel

Itong, Quenie P.

January 18, 2023

SESE109

Genetics
 DON MARIANO MARCOS MEMORIAL STATE
UNIVERSITY
Mid La Union Campus
City of San Fernando,
La Union College of
Education
BACHELOR OF SECONDARY
EDUCATION

I. Introduction

Drosophila melanogaster, commonly known as the fruit fly, is a tiny

winged insect that has played a colossal role in advancing our
understanding of genetics, development, and behavior. This
seemingly insignificant creature has been a workhorse in the lab for
over a century, gracing countless scientific breakthroughs and
earning its place as one of the most important model organisms in
biology.

In conducting the activity about Drosophila melanogaster, the

students are tasked to catch a pair of Drosophila melanogaster
which is to be observed in a couple of days including their growth,
development, lifestyle, breeding, and survivability.The female
Drosophila melanogaster is much larger than the male. It is also
known as the fruit fly, has a relatively short and well-studied life
cycle that consists of several distinct stages.

The physical characteristics of Drosophila melanogaster are about 3

millimeters long with a yellowish-brown body, red eyes, and dark
bands on its abdomen. Their wings are transparent with dark veins.
The fruit fly has a rapid life cycle, completing its four stages (egg,
larva, pupa, and adult) in about 10-15 days at room temperature.
This short generation time allows scientists to observe multiple
generations in a relatively short period, facilitating genetic studies.
Lastly, their diet, as their name suggests, fruit flies are attracted to
ripe fruits and fermenting liquids.

II. Drosophila melanogaster Report

Date Started: December 17,2023

Date Finished: December 31, 2023

December 17, 2023

The students catch the fruit flies by using a bottle with

rotten fruits/veggies inside as bait for the fruit flies to be attracted
by the scent of the rotten fruits/veggies. After that, the students
created an enclosure (using a 1.5-liter bottle of Coke) that is cut in
half. Through this, student’s can take turn observed the fruit flies.
Moreover, the environment for the fruit flies to be able to adapt to
sudden changes could have an effect to their offspring as they
breed in the near future. As Charles Darwin says, “survival of the
fittest”. Will they be able to procreate or will they die onto the
succeeding days?

December 19, 2023

 DON MARIANO MARCOS MEMORIAL STATE
UNIVERSITY
Mid La Union Campus
City of San Fernando,
La Union College of
Education
BACHELOR OF SECONDARY
EDUCATION

The larvae of the fruit flies or commonly referred to as

maggots began to spawn inside the enclosure. The larvae of a fruit
fly are sensitive to light, as the student struck light into it, it hid
itself inside a fruit or a dimmer part of the enclosure. According to
Lin Edwards, Fruit fly larvae need to be able to feel light because
they hide their primitive eyes, called Bolwig organs, on their heads
when they burrow into rotting fruit. Since there is less risk of
predators if their complete body is buried in the fruit, having a
means of detecting light serves to warn them when their body is
exposed and thus susceptible. Overexposure to intense light can
also result in the death of young larvae.

The responses of intact wild-type fruit flies (Drosophila

melanogaster) and those with non-functioning Bolwig organs to light
were compared by Yang Xian and colleagues from the University of
California at San Franciso, New York University, and the Janelia Farm
Research Campus in Virginia.

Therefore, the students concluded that the larvae are

healthy and develop this organ that they inherit from their parents.
If they don’t developed this, and if they are in the wild,
hypothetically, their will be a lesser developed fruit flies in this
family, because they can be eaten by a predator like frogs, ants and
ground beetles etc before they turned into a fruit flies.

December 24, 2023

The larvae of the Drosophila melanogaster enter the pupal

stage, at this point, the larvae stops on feeding and becomes
unable to move as they prepare for metamorphosis.

As holometabolous insects, fruit flies go through a

complete metamorphosis during their life cycle. The four unique life
stages are the egg, larva, pupa, and adult. Temperature affects
development rate; greater temperatures cause it to happen more
quickly the development pf the fruit flies.

So to make the offspring survive, they need to check the

temperature from time to time, it should be maintained
approximately 30 degree celsius to speed up the development of
the larvae that undergo to metamorphosis.

December 29, 2023

The newly adult fruit flies emerges inside the enclosure as

they look pale and soft. They look pale because their color changes
from over a period of time, from light color to their dark color.
Perhaps, because they are a new hatchling or they are exhausted
from the process that they went through that they start to feel
 DON MARIANO MARCOS MEMORIAL STATE
UNIVERSITY
Mid La Union Campus
City of San Fernando,
La Union College of
Education
BACHELOR OF SECONDARY
EDUCATION

hungry. Later on, they start to feed to the foods that we have given,
after 12 hours the fruit, two piece of peeled banana was gone
already.

December 31, 2023

The fruit flies already acquired their pigmentation as their

exoskeleton hardens. Once fully developed the fruit flies are ready
to reproduce, and the cycle begins a new.

III. Conclusion

In conclusion, Drosophila melanogaster exhibit the patterns of

inheritance in genetics. One example is when their offspring
inherited the parents eye color. In this case, both parents have a
red-eye color. All of the offspring also inherit this eye color.
According PubMed Central, the X chromosome, one of the
Drosophila chromosomes that determines sex, contains the gene for
eye color. Recessive eye color is white while the dominant is red.
Since the students could not and should never guess what is the
genotype or alleles of the parent of the fruit flies. They could not
perform a punnet square to show the probability of the offspring
inheriting alleles. Because fruit flies can have multiple alleles or
even an epistatic gene, where in it will be the one who will mask the
expression of the other gene.

Another thing to notice is when two adult fruit fly did not survive on
the day where the students will release it in the wild or their new
environment. The students concluded that it is due to nit having
enough of food resources and even the changing temperature since
December can have a cold temperature especially in the dawn but
hot temperature to the afternoon. When there is a not enough food
resources, the fruit flies competes for the food. When that happens,
only few can survive and it will have a negative effect to the fruit
flies. In this case, two of them died, among the other siblings, in
which the students forget to count.
 DON MARIANO MARCOS MEMORIAL STATE
UNIVERSITY
Mid La Union Campus
City of San Fernando,
La Union College of
Education
BACHELOR OF SECONDARY
EDUCATION

IV. Documentation

(Parent: Common Fruit Flies)

 DON MARIANO MARCOS MEMORIAL STATE
UNIVERSITY
Mid La Union Campus
City of San Fernando,
La Union College of
Education
BACHELOR OF SECONDARY
EDUCATION

(Offsprings that didn’t

survive on the day that we
should release them.)

References:

Edwards, L. (2010, November 12). Fruit fly larvae detect light via body’s
network of photoreceptors. PHYSORG. https://phys.org/news/2010-11-fruit-
larvae-body-network-photoreceptors.amp

Millsr, C. (n.d). Drosophila melanogaster. Animal Diversity Web.

https://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Drosophila_melanogaster/#:~:text=Simil

ar%20to%20all%20insects%20Drosophila,three%20pairs%20of

%20segmented%20legs.