Protsenko A. Genetic processes in natural populations of Drosophila melanogaster in Ukraine

During last 3 years, the monitoring was conducted of mutational and recombination processes in 9 natural populations of Drosophila melanogaster. It has been demonstrated that all populations studied were not in the state of an outbreak of mutations. Apparent mutations were not observed among analyzed individuals from all the populations, excluded two of them. The frequency of sex-linked lethal mutations exceeded the control level in three of the populations studied. For all the populations the average rate of visible mutations during five generations in laboratory breeding was 2%. Maximal emergence (9%) of visible mutations was found in one of Chernobyl populations. A reduction in recombination frequency between white and cut genes has been observed for several populations. It has been shown that P-element copies exist in genome of flies from all the populations. All stocks obtained from natural populations were identified as М' cytotypes. Wolbachia 16s rDNAs were found in individuals from all the populations studied.