Drosophila Molecular Phylogenies and Their Uses

Abstract

Relatively few organisms serve as experimental material for biologists and one could argue that of the several millions of species of plants and animals extant today, no single organism has received more attention as an experimental organism than has Drosophila. In the first part of this century, genetics was the most exciting and new area of biology and, stemming from its use by Morgan and colleagues, Drosophila played a central role in the elucidation of genetic principles. In the middle part of the century, evolutionary genetics and the synthesis of Darwinism with Mendelism represented a major advance in biological thinking; much of the empirical work used to support this synthesis centered around Drosophila as the research organism as exemplified by Dobzhansky’s work. In the latter part of the century, molecular biology and development have become premier research fields and once again Drosophila is playing a major role. The Drosophila embryo is serving as a paradigm for developmental studies (Akam, 1987; Nusslein-Volhard, 1991) as well as a paradigm for genome mapping (Ashburner et al., 1991; Hartl et al., 1992).