{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"ScholarlyArticle","headline":"Molecular evolution of CO2-sensing ab1C neurons underlies divergent sensory responses in the Drosophila suzukii species group.","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alice Gadau"},{"@type":"Person","name":"Sasha Mills"},{"@type":"Person","name":"Xin Yu Zhu Jiang"},{"@type":"Person","name":"Cong Li"},{"@type":"Person","name":"Nicolas Svetec"},{"@type":"Person","name":"Ziyu Xu"},{"@type":"Person","name":"Wanhe Li"},{"@type":"Person","name":"Katherine I Nagel"},{"@type":"Person","name":"Li Zhao"}],"datePublished":"2026","isPartOf":{"@type":"Periodical","name":"PLoS genetics"},"identifier":"https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.1012024","description":"\n Organisms evolve behavioral and morphological traits to adapt to their ecological niches, yet the genetic basis of adaptation remains largely unknown.\n Drosophila suzukii\n has evolved a distinctive oviposition preference for ripe fruit, unlike most\n Drosophila\n species such as\n D. melanogaster\n , which prefer overripe fruit. Carbon dioxide (CO\n 2\n ), a metabolic volatile that increases as fruit ripens and decays, may act as a critical ecological cue shaping these preferences. Here, we focus on\n D. suzukii\n and its sister species\n D. subpulchrella\n , which shows an intermediate preference, to investigate the genetic basis of CO\n 2\n responses. We report a previously unrecognized shift in CO\n 2\n -guided oviposition:\n D. suzukii\n and\n D. subpulchrella\n readily lay eggs on CO\n 2\n -enriched substrates, unlike the strong aversion displayed by\n D. melanogaster\n . Electrophysiological recordings revealed a species-specific sensory tuning, characterized by an early spike in CO\n 2\n -evoked neuronal firing in\n D. suzukii\n and\n D. subpulchrella\n —a temporal response feature absent in\n D. melanogaster\n . To dissect the genetic basis of this shift, we generated transgenic\n D. melanogaster\n expressing either the\n D. suzukii\n Gr63a coding sequence or the\n D. subpulchrella\n Gr63a\n cis\n -regulatory element. Remarkably, both manipulations reproduced the early-onset firing pattern of CO\n 2\n sensitivity, demonstrating that either receptor function or expression can independently drive this sensitivity adaptation. Our findings reveal that evolution can shape ecological adaptation through distinct genetic mechanisms, leading to convergent physiological traits among closely related species.\n ","url":"https://innscience.ca/en/community/literature/doi_10_1371_journal_pgen_1012024"}