Phenotypic Plasticity
Yellow dung flies have extremely variable phenotypes, body size and development rate in particular. Proximate causes of variation include: juvenile nutrition, temperature, predation, and genetic variation. Much phenotypic plasticity in yellow dung flies is a result of food(dung) availability in the larval stage, which is often mediated by conspecific competition. Experimentation shows that less dung, more competitors, and more pat drying all result in decreased growth rate and adult body size. Additionally, when exposed to constant temperatures in a laboratory setting, higher temperatures during growth yield smaller flies. Egg volume, but not clutch size, also decreases with increasing temperature. Giving merit to the hypothesis that constraints on physiological processes at the cellular level account for temperature-mediated body size, studies have also shown that S. stercoraria body size varies via gene-by-environment interactions. Different cell lines vary significantly in growth, development, and adult body size in response to food limitation.
Read more about this topic: Scathophaga Stercoraria