This world wide web site lets you do fly breeding experiments very similar to those which students do in introductory genetics courses. The flies in this simulation have nine traits (e.g. bristle type, eye color, wing shape) each with multiple possible phenotypes including wild type. For each trait, you can get a picture of each phenotype. You start by specifying the traits of the two parent flies, which you then mate. The results of this mating are shown to you as a list of the traits of each type of offspring, as well as a table showing what proportion of the female and male offspring had each trait. These proportions are not perfect genetic proportions like 50/50, but include some error. If you want to, you can also get pictures of what each type of offspring fly looks like. These pictures are useful in some cases (eye color), and not so useful in others where the trait is not easily visible in a picture of a whole fly (bristle type). You can then select a male and female from the offspring to do a further cross or backcross to one of the parents. You can also do a chi-square analysis of the results from your cross.

Although this program could use an injection of java code, its quite nice as it is. For anyone who is comfortable using a web browser, the interface is quite easy to use, and being able to get pictures of each fly brings the simulation to life a little more than other fly genetics programs. One drawback to the program is that you can't look at results of more than one cross side by side - everything is done on separate pages because of the way the world wide web works, and you must flip back and forth between pages to make comparisons. You also can't cross the offspring of one experiment with the offspring from another, or with a new type of fly which you make up. Still, this is a very nice program, and should be quite useful as a substitute or enhancement of the traditional undergraduate fly genetics lab.

Computer: World Wide Web

Source: http://vflylab.calstatela.edu/edesktop/VirtApps/VflyLab/IntroVflyLab.html

Cost: Free

Last update 22nd of January 1996