To test these hypotheses I exposed flies to novel deleterious environments to mimic the effects of deleterious mutations. These flies were split into two batches both running for five consecutive weeks. In each batch there were 200 vials split into 40 vials per treatment with 35 females each. These females were then subjected to a 5 week treatment regimen were fecundity data were observed during week 1 and week 5 by letting the females be subjected to males for 18-h on Mondays. We then let the females lay eggs on Petri dishes during week 1 and 5 and then put these eggs in a refrigerator until needed for counting. For treatments we used copper sulphate, methanol, menadione sodium bisulphite and heat shock.
These treatments were chosen after careful study and consideration by looking at studies which had used these treatments before. I then chose concentrations of these toxins or in the case heat shock i chose a duration and intensity that i thought would be sufficiently deleterious but at the same time would not pose a large risk of having to few eggs for analysis.
