Search results for "Drosophila melanogaster"
showing 10 items of 426 documents
Drosophila Acquires a Long-Lasting Body-Size Memory from Visual Feedback
2019
Summary Grasping an object or crossing a trench requires the integration of information on the operating distance of our limbs with precise distance estimation. The reach of our hands and step size of our legs are learned by the visual feedback we get during our actions. This implicit knowledge of our peripersonal space is first acquired during infancy but will be continuously updated throughout our whole life [ 1 ]. In contrast, body size of holometabolous insects does not change after metamorphosis; nevertheless, they do have to learn their body reaches at least once. The body size of Drosophila imagines can vary by about 15% depending on environmental factors like food quality and temper…
Serotonin modulates a depression-like state in Drosophila responsive to lithium treatment
2016
Major depressive disorder (MDD) affects millions of patients; however, the pathophysiology is poorly understood. Rodent models have been developed using chronic mild stress or unavoidable punishment (learned helplessness) to induce features of depression, like general inactivity and anhedonia. Here we report a three-day vibration-stress protocol for Drosophila that reduces voluntary behavioural activity. As in many MDD patients, lithium-chloride treatment can suppress this depression-like state in flies. The behavioural changes correlate with reduced serotonin (5-HT) release at the mushroom body (MB) and can be relieved by feeding the antidepressant 5-hydroxy-L-tryptophan or sucrose, which …
Male relatedness and familiarity are required to modulate male-induced harm to females in
2017
Males compete over mating and fertilization, and often harm females in the process. Inclusive fitness theory predicts that increasing relatedness within groups of males may relax competition and discourage male harm of females as males gain indirect benefits. Recent studies in Drosophila melanogaster are consistent with these predictions, and have found that within-group male relatedness increases female fitness, though others have found no effects. Importantly, these studies did not fully disentangle male genetic relatedness from larval familiarity, so the extent to which modulation of harm to females is explained by male familiarity remains unclear. Here we performed a fully factorial des…
Inbreeding removes sex differences in lifespan in a population of Drosophila melanogaster
2016
Sex differences in ageing rates and lifespan are common in nature, and an enduring puzzle for evolutionary biology. One possibility is that sex-specific mortality rates may result from recessive deleterious alleles in ‘unguarded’ heterogametic X or Z sex chromosomes (the unguarded X hypothesis). Empirical evidence for this is, however, limited. Here, we test a fundamental prediction of the unguarded X hypothesis in Drosophila melanogaster, namely that inbreeding shortens lifespan more in females (the homogametic sex in Drosophila) than in males. To test for additional sex-specific social effects, we studied the lifespan of males and females kept in isolation, in related same-sex groups, and…
The Influence of the Hot Water Extract from Shiitake Medicinal Mushroom, Lentinus edodes (Higher Basidiomycetes) on the Food Intake, Life Span, and A…
2014
Shiitake medicinal mushroom, Lentinus edodes, is among the most widely cultivated edible mushrooms in the world and is a well-studied source of nutrients and biologically active compounds. We have studied the influence of the dietary supplement of the polysaccharides containing a hot water extract of the mushroom L. edodes on the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster in terms of food intake, body weight, life span, and age-related locomotor activity. L. edodes extract, when added to the D. melanogaster feeding substrate at a 0.003-0.030% concentration (calculated for the dry weight of the polysaccharide fraction) did not influence food intake or body weight of the flies. It increased the life s…
Volatile Drosophila cuticular pheromones are affected by social but not sexual experience.
2012
International audience; Recognition of conspecifics and mates is based on a variety of sensory cues that are specific to the species, sex and social status of each individual. The courtship and mating activity of Drosophila melanogaster flies is thought to depend on the olfactory perception of a male-specific volatile pheromone, cis-vaccenyl acetate (cVA), and the gustatory perception of cuticular hydrocarbons (CHs), some of which are sexually dimorphic. Using two complementary sampling methods (headspace Solid Phase Micro-Extraction [SPME] and solvent extraction) coupled with GC-MS analysis, we measured the dispersion of pheromonal CHs in the air and on the substrate around the fly. We als…
Longitudinal assessment of health-span and pre-death morbidity in wild type
2018
The increase in human life expectancy is accompanied by age-related cognitive and motor disability, thus raising the demand for strategies toward healthy aging. This requires understanding the biology of normal aging and late-life functional phenotypes. Genetic model organisms, such as Drosophila melanogaster, can help identifying evolutionary conserved mechanisms underlying aging. Longitudinal assessment of motor performance of more than 1000 individual flies revealed age-related motor performance decline and specific late-life motor disabilities. This allows defining heath- and ill-span and scoring late-life quality of individual flies. As in mammals, including humans, onset, duration, se…
Prospero mutants induce precocious sexual behavior in Drosophila males.
2007
0001-8244 (Print) Journal Article Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't; Brain maturation, a developmental process influenced by both endogenous and environmental factors, can affect sexual behavior. In vertebrates and invertebrates, sexual maturation is under the influence of hormones and neuromodulators, but the role of developmental genes in this process is still poorly understood. We report that prospero (pros), a gene crucial for nervous system development, can change the age of onset of sexual behavior in Drosophila melanogaster males: adult males carrying a single copy of several pros mutations court females and mate at a younger age than control males. However, these pros mutations had n…
Social experience and pheromonal perception can change male-male interactions in Drosophila melanogaster
2005
0022-0949 (Print) Comparative Study Journal Article Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't; Social interaction with conspecifics can influence the developing brain and behaviour of the exposed animal. This experience can involve the exchange and retention of visual, chemical, acoustic and tactile signals. When several Drosophila melanogaster male flies are associated with mated females in the presence of food, they show frequent aggressive interactions. To measure the role of social experience on male-male interaction, two tester males - naive or exposed to sibling(s) during a variable period of their adult development - were confronted in the absence of female and food. The two males displayed h…
Simultaneous influence on male courtship of stimulatory and inhibitory pheromones produced by live sex-mosaic Drosophila melanogaster
1996
0962-8452 (Print) Journal Article Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't; Stable strains of Drosophila melanogaster flies producing mosaic sex-pheromones were created by manipulating the sex-determination gene transformer in different cellular patterns. Chromosomally male flies produced molecules that were partly or totally feminized, depending upon the strain. The influence on male courtship behaviour of live flies producing different mixtures of male and female pheromones was measured. The intensity of the male response was mainly a function of the stimulatory effect of 7, 11 nonacosadiene and 7, 11 heptacosadiene, two female pheromones, combined with the inhibiting effect of 7-tricosene, the m…