Modifying the sternopleural hair pattern in Drosophila by selection

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Abstract
Two apparently very similar quantitative characters, the numbers of hairs on the sternopleural region and on the abdominal sternites of Drosophila melanogaster, show unexpected differences in their genetic behaviour. In particular, the amount of left-right asymmetry of the sternopleurals (i.e. the mean absolute difference in numbers of hairs on the two sides of the fly) tends to decline when inbred lines are intercrossed, and can be both increased and decreased by straightforward selection; the corresponding index for the sternite hairs—the uncorrelated variance between two sternites, or the mean absolute difference between the numbers of hairs on each—appears, on the other hand, to be susceptible neither to selection nor to change when inbred lines are crossed (Mather, 1953; Reeve & Robertson, 1954; Reeve, 1959).