Biologists discover why one species of fruit fly is dependent on a single cactus species
Friday, September 28, 2012 - 06:30
in Biology & Nature
(Phys.org)—Researchers studying Drosophila pachea, a species of fruit fly that lives only in the Sonoran desert, have discovered why it is that the fly is wholly dependent on a single cactus species. It's due, they write in their paper published in the journal Science, to a mutation in a gene in a protein necessary for growth from larvae to adult, which allows the fly to convert a substance other than cholesterol to 7-dehydrocholesterol.