New paper looking at life history changes associated with artificial selection on body size!

Our new paper, coauthored by lab technician and Barnard alum Avigayil Lev ('22), has been published in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology! This work, part of a collaboration with Andrew Stewart's lab at Canisius University, uses populations created by Andrew to look at the life history changes associated with >400 generations of artificial selection on body size in Drosophila melanogaster. We found that flies selected for small body size had lower juvenile viability, fecundity, and absolute egg size, but higher relative egg size, than flies selected for large body size. Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that egg size is a key constraint on body size evolution in this species. Check out Barnard's coverage of this work here.