Donald Price, Kristian West, Michelle Cevallos-Zea. and Matthew Medeiros (all Life Sciences), along with Sara Cahan, Joaquin Nunez, and Emily Longman from the University of Vermont and Joanne Yew from the University of Hawaii, have recently published a paper in the Journal of Experimental Biology. Kristian West and Michelle Cevallos-Zea have been in the Price lab for several years as undergraduate and post-bachelor students. West has recently been accepted as a Ph.D. student at the University of College Cork in Ireland, studying the gut microbiome effects on the endocannabinoid system.
The paper, "Microbiome composition shapes temperature tolerance in a Hawaiian picture-winged Drosophila," revealed distinct bacterial and fungal communities in two Drosophila basisetae populations from Hawaiian rainforests at 900 m and 1200 m elevation. The research also demonstrated that Drosophila receiving low-elevation microbiota exhibited higher survival across temperatures, whereas those given high-elevation microbiota produced more eggs, indicating microbiome mediated differences in survival and reproductive investment. Activity levels were higher when flies received microbiota from their native population, whereas critical thermal maximum and male accessory gland size revealed complex interactions among microbiome, temperature and population.
These population effects are consistent with whole-genome resequencing of wild-caught flies that identified outlier Single Nucleotide Polymorphism in genes associated with immunity, heat tolerance and reproduction, despite signs of admixture and gene flow across populations. Overall, these results indicate that microbiome–host–environment interactions may modulate thermal tolerance and reproduction in population- and environment-specific ways and contribute to both phenotypic plasticity and evolutionary adaptation. These insights inform conservation strategies for Hawaiian Drosophila that incorporate microbial management to bolster adaptive potential and resilience in Hawaiian ecosystems.
