Clinal variation is one of the most emblematic examples of the action of natural selection at a wide geographical range. In Drosophila subobscura parallel clines in body size and inversions, but not in wing shape, were found in Europe and South and North America. Previous work has shown that a bottleneck effect might be largely responsible for differences in wing trait-inversions association between one European and one South American population. One question still unaddressed is if the associations found before are present across other populations of the European and South American clines. Another open question is whether evolutionary dynamics in a new environment can lead to relevant changes in wing traits-inversions association. In order to analyze geographical variation in these associations, we characterized three recently laboratory founded Drosophila subobscura populations from both the European and South American latitudinal clines. To address temporal variation, we also characterized the association at a later generation in the European populations. We found that wing size and shape associations can be generalized across populations of the same continent, but may change through time for wing size. The observed temporal changes are probably due to changes in the genetic content of inversions, derived from adaptation to the new, laboratory environment. Finally, we show that it is not possible to predict clinal variation from intrapopulation associations. All in all this suggests that, at least in the present, wing traits-inversion associations are not responsible for the maintenance of the latitudinal clines in wing shape and size.

Raw Data and Average statisticsIn this excel book you can find the raw data for the three populations analyzed in each continent (Europe and South America) and the two generations of the European populations analyzed (6 and 25). Additionally, there are also tables with the basic statistics (average and standard deviation) of centroid size and wing shape for each inversion analyzed, separated by replicate population and generation.Simulations and BootstrapR code used to generate the simulations of the association between centroid size and standard dose and the bootstrap of the observed associations.