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First published online August 3, 2006
Journal of Experimental Biology 209, 3155-3163 (2006)
Published by The Company of Biologists 2006
doi: 10.1242/jeb.02318

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Age determination in individual wild-caught Drosophila serrata using pteridine concentration

Simon K. A. Robson^1,*, Mathew Vickers¹, Mark W. Blows² and Ross H. Crozier¹

¹ School of Tropical Biology, James Cook University, Townsville QLD 4812, Australia
² School of Integrative Biology, Queensland University, St Lucia 4067, Australia

^* Author for correspondence (e-mail: Simon.Robson{at}jcu.edu.au)

Accepted 9 May 2006

Fluorescence spectrophotometry can reliably detect levels of the pteridine 6-biopterin in the heads of individual Drosophila serrata Malloch 1927. Pteridine content in both laboratory and field captured flies is typically a level of magnitude higher than the minimally detectable level (mean_lab=0.54 units, mean_field=0.44 units, minimum detectable level=0.01 units) and can be used to predict individual age in laboratory populations with high certainty (r²=57%). Laboratory studies of individuals of known age (from 1 to 48 days old) indicate that while pteridine level increases linearly with age, they also increase in a linear manner with rearing temperature and ambient light levels, but are independent of sex. As expected, the longevity of laboratory-reared males (at least 48 days) is higher than the range of predicted ages of wild-caught males based on individual pteridine levels (40 days). However, the predictive equation based on pteridine level alone suggested that a number of wild-caught males were less than 0 days old, and the 95% confidence limits for these predictions based on the inverse regression are broad. The age of the oldest wild-caught male is predicted to fall within the range of 2 to 50 days. The significant effects of temperature and light intensity determined in the laboratory study (effect sizes ²=14.3 and 20.4%, respectively) suggests that the calibration of the age prediction equation for field populations would be significantly improved when combined with fine-scaled studies of habitat temperature and light conditions. The ability to determine relative age in individual wild-caught D. serrata presents great opportunities for a variety of evolutionary studies on the dynamics of natural populations.

Key words: age determination, pteridine, Drosophila serrata, survivor function

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