The work of Jean David (IGGIPOP), Amir Yassin and colleagues on the variability of females of Drosophila erecta was published in Nature Communications. The authors showed that one gene, the tan gene, was responsible for the existence of two types of females, one ressembling the males with a black abdomen and the other harboring a white abdomen.
The females with black abdomen would have an advantage when sexual competition is at its top because they are less attractive and hence are less subjected to sexual harrassment from the males. This would maintain this variability of abdomen coloration of females which appears to date from long ago.
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