Drosophila Melanogaster – Sex Linkage and Inheritance of Genes Through Cross Breeding Essay Example

style="text-align: justify">1cm of white media for the flies to use as food and to lay their eggs in and a foam stopper at the top as to not restrict air flow. We then had to decant the flies into one vial by first placing the separate vials in an ice bath for 1 minute or until the Drosophila became immobile and quickly transfer the flies from one vial so that the males and females were together in one vial. Care was taken to not let the immobilised Drosophila drown in the white media until they were flying again. The vial was then labeled accordingly with the type of cross (Male Vg, Female W) and the date.

The date is important as the Drosophila complete a life cycle within approximately 2 weeks from the mating day. This vial became known as the parent generation or (P). The vial was then kept in a moderate temperature out of the sun and by the end of the first week the parent generation had laid eggs, hatched and the next generation were between the larva stage and the pupa stage. At this point, the parent generations was no longer required and were decanted out into ethyl alcohol, killed and disposed of. They did not need to be scored (inspected) as we already knew what they were.

We then kept the vial with the juvenile Drosophila for another 2 weeks in the same conditions as above and found that the F1 generation had hatched and laid eggs of their own. We then decanted the F1 generation into alcohol to kill them and kept them aside to score. The

vial containing the new generation F2 of Drosophila was then kept for use in a further experiment. The F1 generation that we had just decanted was then moved to a dissecting microscope for scoring, this generation included 20 Drosophila flies that we could then inspect for different traits using the microscope (traits being the sex of the fly, eye colour and wing type).