Emergence of social cluster by collective pairwise encounters in Drosophila.

ABSTRACT: Many animals exhibit an astonishing ability to form groups of large numbers of individuals. The dynamic properties of such groups have been the subject of intensive investigation. The actual grouping processes and underlying neural mechanisms, however, remain elusive. Here, we established a social clustering paradigm in Drosophila to investigate the principles governing social group formation. Fruit flies spontaneously assembled into a stable cluster mimicking a distributed network. Social clustering was exhibited as a highly dynamic process including all individuals, which participated in stochastic pair-wise encounters mediated by appendage touches. Depriving sensory inputs resulted in abnormal encounter responses and a high failure rate of cluster formation. Furthermore, the social dist

SUBMITTER: Jiang L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6989122 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature