Abstract
The prevalence of yeasts in the diets of Drosophila species has stimulated studies on the role of yeasts in almost all aspects of the biology of Drosophila. The early work of Del-court and Guyenot (1910) and Baumberger (1919) on the nutritional importance of yeasts for Drosophila was followed in the middle of the 20th century by two major research efforts. One was primarily concerned with the nutritional value of yeasts to Drosophila in the laboratory (reviewed by Sang, 1978) while the other was directed toward understanding the evolutionary biology of natural populations of Drosophila species by studying their natural food, yeasts (reviewed by Begon, 1982). Both lines of investigation suggested that the two organisms depend on one another for survival. The dependencies are basically mutualistic. The yeasts rely on insects such as Drosophila species for dispersal to new habitats while the Drosophila rely on the yeasts for nutrition during larval development and egg maturation.
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Starmer, W.T., Aberdeen, V. (1990). The Nutritional Importance of Pure and Mixed Cultures of Yeasts in the Development of Drosophila mulleri Larvae in Opuntia Tissues and its Relationship to Host Plant Shifts . In: Barker, J.S.F., Starmer, W.T., MacIntyre, R.J. (eds) Ecological and Evolutionary Genetics of Drosophila . Monographs in Evolutionary Biology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-8768-8_11
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