The effect of lactose and fructose based-­‐diets on Drosophila melanogaster maturation time

Abstract

Using the model organism, Drosophila melanogaster, we studied the effect of lactose, fructose, and dextrose based growth media on maturation time, starting from the larval stage. As D. melanogaster is normally cultivated in standard dextrose medium, we used dextrose as our control and chose lactose and fructose as our two treatments. D. melanogaster was observed for a total of 12 consecutive days with the exception of days 8 and 9. After 12 days, a statistically equal number of D. melanogaster were observed in all treatments, however, between day 5 and day 10 there were significantly more adults observed in the dextrose--‐based growth medium than in both the lactose and fructose treatments. Our observations were not substantiated by literature, as there was an absence of research on the specific subject matter. However, discussion of biological factors and variance provide possible explanations for our results.