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Gender-selective patterns of aggressive behavior in Drosophila melanogaster.

ABSTRACT: Complex behaviors, such as aggression, are comprised of distinct stereospecific behavioral patterns (modules). How such patterns get wired into nervous systems remains unknown. Recently, we reported on a quantitative analysis of fighting behavior in male flies of the common Canton-S strain of Drosophila melanogaster. Here, we report a similar analysis of fighting behavior in females of the same species. Fights were carried out between pairs of virgin and pairs of mated females in competition for a yeast resource. Each fight was videotaped and analyzed by using transition matrices and Markov chain analyses. We observe only small difference in fighting intensity between virgin and mated females. In contrast to what is seen in male fights, however, no clear hierarchical relationship is formed in the female fights. A further comparison of the behavioral patterns making up male and female fights reveals that some modules are shared by both sexes, whereas others are highly selective. Within the shared components, transitions between the modules also show gender-selective differences. By using the powerful genetic methods available for examining behavior in fruit flies, it should be possible to use the gender-selective differences in fighting behavior to address the question of how these behavioral patterns get established in the brains of fruit flies.

SUBMITTER: Nilsen SP

PROVIDER: S-EPMC514477 | biostudies-literature | 2004 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Gender-selective patterns of aggressive behavior in Drosophila melanogaster.

Nilsen Steven P SP Chan Yick-Bun YB Huber Robert R Kravitz Edward A EA

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20040809 33

Complex behaviors, such as aggression, are comprised of distinct stereospecific behavioral patterns (modules). How such patterns get wired into nervous systems remains unknown. Recently, we reported on a quantitative analysis of fighting behavior in male flies of the common Canton-S strain of Drosophila melanogaster. Here, we report a similar analysis of fighting behavior in females of the same species. Fights were carried out between pairs of virgin and pairs of mated females in competition for ...[more]

PMID: 15302936

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Project description:BackgroundAggressive behavior in animals is important for survival and reproduction. Identifying the underlying genes and environmental contexts that affect aggressive behavior is important for understanding the evolutionary forces that maintain variation for aggressive behavior in natural populations, and to develop therapeutic interventions to modulate extreme levels of aggressive behavior in humans. While the role of neurotransmitters and a few other molecules in mediating and modulating levels of aggression is well established, it is likely that many additional genetic pathways remain undiscovered. Drosophila melanogaster has recently been established as an excellent model organism for studying the genetic basis of aggressive behavior. Here, we present the results of a screen of 170 Drosophila P-element insertional mutations for quantitative differences in aggressive behavior from their co-isogenic control line.ResultsWe identified 59 mutations in 57 genes that affect aggressive behavior, none of which had been previously implicated to affect aggression. Thirty-two of these mutants exhibited increased aggression, while 27 lines were less aggressive than the control. Many of the genes affect the development and function of the nervous system, and are thus plausibly relevant to the execution of complex behaviors. Others affect basic cellular and metabolic processes, or are mutations in computationally predicted genes for which aggressive behavior is the first biological annotation. Most of the mutations had pleiotropic effects on other complex traits. We characterized nine of these mutations in greater detail by assessing transcript levels throughout development, morphological changes in the mushroom bodies, and restoration of control levels of aggression in revertant alleles. All of the P-element insertions affected the tagged genes, and had pleiotropic effects on brain morphology.ConclusionThis study reveals that many more genes than previously suspected affect aggressive behavior, and that these genes have widespread pleiotropic effects. Given the conservation of aggressive behavior among different animal species, these are novel candidate genes for future study in other animals, including humans.

Dataset Information

Gender-selective patterns of aggressive behavior in Drosophila melanogaster.

Publications

Gender-selective patterns of aggressive behavior in Drosophila melanogaster.

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