Sexually dimorphic social spacing after isolation in Drosophila melanogaster: Determining the neural circuitry involved

Wes Robinson, Abigail Bechard, Micah Evans

 

The decision of where an animal settles relative to others is dependent on its ability to recognize and respond appropriately. These responses have been observed to be sexually dimorphic in some species and influenced by previous social experience, such as isolation. I studied these responses through measuring social space, the distance between an individual to its closest neighbour in a stable group, which precedes more complex behaviours such as mating and aggression. Distances between flies with altered neuronal activity of doublesex (dsx)- and fruitless (fru)-expressing neurons were measured to determine social space. Manipulations of dsx-expressing neurons did not result in significantly different distances between flies. Increasing and decreasing activity levels fruP1-expressing neurons in females caused them to settle farther apart, however only hyper-activation of fruP1-expressing neurons in males altered their social space. This study has allowed for a better understanding of the sex-specific neural circuitry that is involved in processing social space cues.

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