At long last, years of hard work in the field of Drosophila research has met with the fruition of this publication…maybe one day I will blog about the challenges of associated with this field of research.  Now is not the time, but suffice to say, I will say this….if a paper on fruit fly phenotype is published and nothing about the husbandry, nutrition, and rearing conditions are provided, the research should be taken with huge grain of salt.  Context is everything.

http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/aw3qyesUcwvAMzixIzbS/full

 

Effect sizes of the influence of diet on developmental, behavioural, and physiological parameters

Comparison	Phenotype	Hedge’s g (± 95% CI)	r	Significant
Larval wet mass	Morphology	32.66 ± 10.16	0.99	Yes
Larval dry mass	Morphology	10.60 ± 3.40	0.98	Yes
Larval width	Morphology	3.53 ± 0.63	0.87	Yes
Adult wing length	Morphology	1.30 ± 0.48	0.55	Yes
Larva Emergence	Fecundity	0.80 ± 0.64	0.36	Yes
Pupa Emergence	Development	2.09 ± 0.99	0.70	Yes
Adult survivorship	Lifespan	0.70 ± 0.13	0.32	Yes
Larva Thermotaxis	Sensory	0.80 ± 0.64	0.36	Yes
Adult Thermotaxis	Sensory	0.38 ± 0.66	0.18	No
Larval Thermal Retreat	Neuromuscular	0.73 ± 0.39	0.34	Yes
Adult Geotaxis	Neuromuscular	2.49 ± 1.01	0.77	Yes
Muscle Basal Tonus	Neuromuscular	2.51 ± 1.17	0.77	Yes
Muscle Maximum	Neuromuscular	0.23 ± 0.88	0.11	No
Learning Index	Neurological	0.34 ± 0.88	0.16	No