DOI: 10.5061/dryad.z612jm6mk
title: High-fat and high-sugar diets induce rapid adaptations of fat storage in the house fly Musca domestica L

description: Dietary change can be a strong evolutionary force and lead to rapid
 adaptation in organisms. High-fat and high-sugar diets can challenge key
 metabolic pathways, negatively affecting other life-history traits and
 inducing pathologies such as obesity and diabetes. In this study, we use
 experimental evolution to investigate the plastic and evolutionary
 responses to nutritionally unbalanced diets. We reared replicated lines of
 larvae of the housefly Musca domestica on a fat-enriched (FAT), a
 sugar-enriched (SUG), and a control (CTRL) diet for thirteen generations.
 We measured development time in each generation, and larval growth and fat
 accumulation in generations 1, 7, and 13. Subsequently, all lines were
 reared for one generation on the control diet to detect any plastic and
 evolutionary changes. In the first generation, time to pupation decreased
 on a fat-rich diet and increased on a sugar-rich diet. The fat-rich diet
 increased fat accumulation and, to a lesser extent, the dry weight of the
 larvae. Multigenerational exposure to unbalanced diets caused compensatory
 changes in development time, dry weight, as well as absolute and relative
 fat content, although pattern and timing depended on diet and trait. When
 put back on a control diet, many of the changes induced by the unbalanced
 diets disappeared, indicating that the diet has large plastic effects.
 Nevertheless, fat-evolved lines still grew significantly larger than the
 sugar-evolved lines, and sugar-evolved lines had consistently lower fat
 content. This can be an effect of parental diet or an evolutionary change
 in nutrient metabolism as a consequence of multigenerational exposure to
 unbalanced diets.
description: This dataset has been collected at generations 1, 7,  and 13 of
 long-term experimental evolution. The data are the raw body mass weighings
 before and after ether extraction, the calculated fat content (the mass
 difference between the two weighings), and relative fat content (fat
 content divided by dry body mass before ether extraction). We also
 measured the temperature of the growth substrate in Celsius.
description: # High-fat and high-sugar diets induce rapid adaptations of fat storage in
 the house fly Musca domestica L
 [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.z612jm6mk](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.z612jm6mk) *Authors:* Francesco Boatta, F.†; Jurgen van Hal; Leo W. Beukeboom; Jacintha Ellers †Francesco Boatta collected the data and wrote the code (related manuscript to be Published in Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 2024). ### Files and variables **Description:**  #### File: EXPEVO\_BIOCONV\_F12\_R.csv **Description:** This is the R.script used to obtain the statistics and the figures ##### Variables: | Acronym | Type | Values | Full name | Explanation | | :-------- | :------ | :-------------- | :------------------- | :--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | exp | text | EXPEVO, BIOCONV | experiment type | EXPEVO refers to data from the main experimental evolution experiment, BIOCONV refers to the experiment where experimentally evolved lines were reared on control diet | | gen | numeric | 0 to 12 | generation | number of larval generation | | day | numeric | 4-7 | day | Time since egg hatching | | treat | text | ctrl; fat; sug | treatment | dietary treatments used: control (ctrl), fat rich (fat) and sugar rich (sug) diet | | cage | numeric | 1 to 15 | | Replicate number of each independent line | | dry\_w | numeric |   | dry weight | Total dry weight of larvae (mg) | | T1 weight | numeric |   |   | Dry weight larvae after ether extraction (mg) | | lip\_abs | numeric |   | absolute fat content | Dry weight of larval fat content (mg) | | lip\_rel | numeric |   | relative fat content | % fat content relative to total larval dry weight | #### File: EXPEVO\_data.csv **Description:** data file ##### Variables: | Acronym | Type | Values | Full name | Explanation | | :-------- | :------ | :-------------- | :------------------- | :--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | exp | text | EXPEVO, BIOCONV | experiment type | EXPEVO refers to data from the main experimental evolution experiment, BIOCONV refers to the experiment where experimentally evolved lines were reared on control diet | | gen | numeric | 0 to 12 | generation | number of larval generation | | day | numeric | 4-7, p | day | Time since egg hatching, p is day of pupation | | treat | text | ctrl; fat; sug | treatment | dietary treatments used: control (ctrl), fat rich (fat) and sugar rich (sug) diet | | cage | numeric | 1 to 15 | | Replicate number of each independent line | | dry\_w | numeric |   | dry weight | Total dry weight of larvae (mg) | | T1 weight | numeric |   |   | Dry weight larvae after ether extraction (mg) | | lip\_abs | numeric |   | absolute fat content | Dry weight of larval fat content (mg) | | lip\_rel | numeric |   | relative fat content | % fat content relative to total larval dry weight | #### File: expevo\_development\_stages\_data.csv **Description:** data file ##### Variables: | Acronym | Type | Values | Full name | Explanation | | :------ | :------ | :------------- | :----------- | :-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | gen | numeric | 0 to 12 | generation | number of larval generation | | treat | text | ctrl; fat; sug | treatment | dietary treatments used: control (ctrl), fat rich (fat) and sugar rich (sug) diet | | cage | numeric | 1 to 15 |   | Replicate number for each independent line | | larval | numeric | | larval stage | time to reach pupation (days) from egg hatching | | pupa | numeric | | pupae stage | time from occurrence of first pupae to emergence of adults (days) | Note that for generation 12 adult emergence was not recorded, therefore data for pupa are missing for G12. They are intentionally left blank. Filling them with 'n.a' will interfere with our script #### File: temperatures\_for\_R\_analysis.csv **Description:** data file ##### Variables: | Acronym | Type | Values | Full name | Explanation | | :------ | :------ | :------------- | :---------- | :-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | gen | numeric | 0 to 12 | generation | number of larval generation | | cage | numeric | 1 to 15 |   | Replicate number for each independent line | | treat | text | ctrl; fat; sug | treatment | dietary treatments used: control (ctrl), fat rich (fat) and sugar rich (sug) diet | | day | numeric | 4-7 | day | Time since egg hatching | | temp | numeric |   | temperature | The temperature of the substrate (C) | ## Code/software Data were analysed using R version "Ghost Orchid" Release (077589bc, 2021-09-20).