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Cooperative Behavior Emerges among Drosophila Larvae
- Source :
- Current biology : CB. 27(18)
- Publication Year :
- 2017
-
Abstract
- Spectacular examples of cooperative behavior emerge among a variety of animals and may serve critical roles in fitness [1, 2]. However, the rules governing such behavior have been difficult to elucidate [2]. Drosophila larvae are known to socially aggregate [3, 4] and use vision, mechanosensation, and gustation to recognize each other [5-8]. We describe here a model experimental system of cooperative behavior involving Drosophila larvae. While foraging in liquid food, larvae are observed to align themselves and coordinate their movements in order to drag a common air cavity and dig deeper. Large-scale cooperation is required to maintain contiguous air contact across the posterior breathing spiracles. On the basis of a directed genetic screen we find that vision plays a key role in cluster dynamics. Our experiments show that blind larvae form fewer clusters and dig less efficiently than wild-type and that socially isolated larvae behave as if they were blind. Furthermore, we observed that blind and socially isolated larvae do not integrate effectively into wild-type clusters. Behavioral data indicate that vision and social experience are required to coordinate precise movements between pairs of larvae, therefore increasing the degree of cooperativity within a cluster. Hence, we hypothesize that vision and social experience allow Drosophila larvae to assemble cooperative digging groups leading to more effective feeding and potential evasion of predators. Most importantly, these results indicate that control over membership of such a cooperative group can be regulated.
- Subjects :
- 0301 basic medicine
animal structures
genetic structures
Movement
Foraging
Air cavity
General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
03 medical and health sciences
0302 clinical medicine
Cooperative group
Animals
Cooperative Behavior
Drosophila
biology
Ecology
fungi
Liquid food
Feeding Behavior
biology.organism_classification
030104 developmental biology
Behavioral data
Evolutionary biology
Larva
Cooperative behavior
General Agricultural and Biological Sciences
030217 neurology & neurosurgery
Drosophila larvae
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 18790445
- Volume :
- 27
- Issue :
- 18
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Current biology : CB
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....245a2f2c5a53ed30618d8acbb0b1075f