Investigating Fruit Fly Genetics: A Laboratory Guide

Investigating Fruit Fly Genetics: A Laboratory Guide

The Fruit Fly: An Ideal Organism for Genetic Studies

Fruit flies have long since been ideal organisms to work with while studying genetics. They are easy to keep in a laboratory, have short generation times, and reproduce in large numbers. Fruit flies have 4 pairs of chromosomes, so they are reasonably simple in that regard. These model organisms were the choice of geneticists such as Thomas Hunt Morgan and Alfred Sturtevant; over the last hundred years or so we have learned a substantial amount about eukaryotic genetics from these simple organisms.

In this virtual lab, you will work with several different fly characteristics to, first,…