Prometheus 6

The low-latitude inversions have crept upward, appearing in the more northerly flies in 21 of 22 sites that have experienced warming, but not in four nonwarmed sites, they find. Flies in the warmed sites have the pattern of inversions that would previously have been found in their brethren one degree, or 70 miles, closer to the equator.

Global Warming Shows Up in Fly Genes

Climate warming over the last quarter century is writ large in tiny fruit flies, according to a genetic analysis. In a species of fruit fly, the frequencies of so-called inversions, in which a piece of chromosome is flipped around, were observed decades ago to correspond to the latitude at which the flies were found. In nearly all the sites where the flies have recently been sampled--a span of three continents--the frequency of specific inversions has increased hand in hand with climbing temperatures. "It's a very clear signal that climate warming is going to have a big impact on our environment," says Raymond Huey of the University of Washington, co-author of a report in the September 1 Science that documents the change.