Dataset Information

Paired fruit flies synchronize behavior: Uncovering social interactions in Drosophila melanogaster.

ABSTRACT: Social behaviors are ubiquitous and crucial to an animal's survival and success. The behaviors an animal performs in a social setting are affected by internal factors, inputs from the environment, and interactions with others. To quantify social behaviors, we need to measure both the stochastic nature of the behavior of isolated individuals and how this behavioral repertoire changes as a function of the environment and interactions between individuals. We probed the behavior of male and female fruit flies in a circular arena as individuals and within all possible pairings. By combining measurements of the animals' position in the arena with an unsupervised analysis of their behaviors, we define the effects of position in the environment and the presence of a partner on locomotion, grooming, singing, and other behaviors that make up an animal's repertoire. We find that geometric context tunes behavioral preference, pairs of animals synchronize their behavioral preferences across shared trials, and paired individuals display signatures of behavioral mimicry.

SUBMITTER: Klibaite U

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7567355 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Paired fruit flies synchronize behavior: Uncovering social interactions in Drosophila melanogaster.

Klibaite Ugne U Shaevitz Joshua W JW

PLoS computational biology 20201006 10

Social behaviors are ubiquitous and crucial to an animal's survival and success. The behaviors an animal performs in a social setting are affected by internal factors, inputs from the environment, and interactions with others. To quantify social behaviors, we need to measure both the stochastic nature of the behavior of isolated individuals and how this behavioral repertoire changes as a function of the environment and interactions between individuals. We probed the behavior of male and female f ...[more]

PMID: 33021989

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Project description:The past 2 decades have seen fruit flies being widely adopted for research on social behavior and aggression. This fruitful research, however, has not been well tied to fruit flies' natural history. To address this knowledge gap, I conducted a field study. My goal was to inform future research conducted in artificial surroundings, and to inspire new investigations that can rely more heavily on fruit flies' actual natural behavior. My two main novel findings were first, that flies in the field showed significant sociability, as they formed social groups rather than dispersed randomly among fruits of similar quality. Second, males showed fair levels of aggression towards each other as indicated by a lunging rate of 17 per hour, and lower rates of wing threat and boxing. Courtship was the most prominent activity on fruits, with females rejecting almost all males' advances. This resulted in an estimated mating rate of 0.6 per female per day. Flies showed a striking peak of activity early in the mornings, even at cold temperatures, followed by inactivity for much of the day and night. Flies, however, handled well high temperatures approaching 40 °C by hiding away from fruit and concentrating activity in the cooler, early mornings. My field work highlights a few promising lines of future research informed by fruit flies' natural history. Most importantly, we do not understand the intriguing dynamics that generate significant sociability despite frequent aggressive interactions on fruits. Males' responses to female rejection signals varied widely, perhaps because the signals differed in information content perceived by flies but not humans. Finally, flies tolerated cold early mornings perhaps owing to fitness benefits associated with increased mating and feeding opportunities at this time. Flies were adept at handling very high temperatures under the natural daily temperature fluctuations and availability of shelters, and this can inform more realistic research on the effects of global warming on animals in their natural settings.

Dataset Information

Paired fruit flies synchronize behavior: Uncovering social interactions in Drosophila melanogaster.

Publications

Paired fruit flies synchronize behavior: Uncovering social interactions in Drosophila melanogaster.

Similar Datasets

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