In the lab that summer morning, Thomas Wernerâ??s heart pounded.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison post-doctoral researcher had to sit down and take deep breaths before continuing the crucial experiment.Werner, who had grown up in East Germany hoping to study butterflies, had instead devoted more than three years to a species of the North American fruit fly, Drosophila guttifera.
Focusing on this species of fruit fly, he and the other researchers in the lab of molecular biologist Sean B. Carroll, had made a prolonged assault on one of the key questions in evolutionary biology: how nature endows creatures with their colorful patterns, from a leopardâ??s dark spots to a butterflyâ??s bold swirls. In different species the patterns serve to attract mates, provide camouflage or provide other advantages in the struggle to survive.