The Effects of Disruptive and Stabilizing Selection on Body Size in Drosophila Melanogaster. I. Mean Values and Variances

Disruptive and stabilizing selection were applied to thorax and wing length in Drosophila melanogaster. Disruptive selection with negative assortative mating (D(-)) practiced on thorax length caused a large increase of the phenotypic variance; practiced on wing length the increase was less striking. Disruptive selection with random mating (D(R)) caused in most lines only a temporary increase in phenotypic variance, but mean values increased considerably. Stabilizing selection (S) on thorax length or wing length did not decrease the phenotypic variance, but the mean value of the selected character declined.-The proportion of flies emerging decreased in all lines, while development time increased. Variance of development time increased in the D(-)-lines. In both D(-)-lines the frequency of flies with an abnormal number of scutellars was high (> 60% in one of the lines) and there was a temporary increase in abnormal segmentation of the abdomen.