Fighting fruit flies: A model system for the study of aggression

Abstract

Despite the importance of aggression in the behavioral repertoire of most animals, relatively little is known of its proximate causation and control. To take advantage of modern methods of genetic analysis for studying this complex behavior, we have developed a quantitative framework for studying aggression in common laboratory strains of the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster. In the present study we analyze 73 experiments in which socially naive male fruit flies interacted in more than 2,000 individual agonistic interactions. This allows us to (i) generate an ethogram of the behaviors that occur during agonistic interactions; (ii) calculate descriptive statistics for these behaviors; and (iii) identify their temporal patterns by using sequence analysis. Thirty-minute paired trials between flies contained an average of 27 individual agonistic interactions, lasting a mean of 11 seconds and featuring a variety of intensity levels. Only few fights progressed to the highest intensity levels (boxing and tussling). A sequential analysis demonstrated the existence of recurrent patterns in behaviors with some similarity to those seen during courtship. Based on the patterns characterized in the present report, a detailed examination of aggressive behavior by using mutant strains and other techniques of genetic analysis becomes possible.

A common genetic target for environmental and heritable influences on aggressiveness in Drosophila

“…A pair of male flies of similar age and social experience (raised in isolation shortly after eclosion or in groups of 10 male flies for 3 days before the test) was transferred into a fighting arena containing a small food patch. Consistent with earlier reports (17), we observed that lunging behavior, in which one fly rears up on its hind legs and charges the other fly, was the predominant form of aggression (18). Therefore, we counted lunges as a measure of aggressiveness during a 20-min observation period.…”

“…Lunging behavior was defined as described in ref. 17. The temperature and humidity of the apparatus was set to Ϸ25°C and Ϸ40%, respectively.…”

“…However, the nature of the molecular mechanisms mediating this effect and whether they are evolutionarily conserved are poorly understood. Here, we have used fruit flies, D. melanogaster, a genetically tractable organism in which aggression has been well characterized (15)(16)(17) to investigate the molecular basis of the influence of social experience on aggressiveness.…”

Tailless and Atrophin control Drosophila aggression by regulating neuropeptide signalling in the pars intercerebralis

“…The elucidation of the genes and neuronal circuitry that regulate aggression is key to the understanding of its mechanisms. The fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster has recently emerged as a model system to study aggression [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12] . Several conserved neuromodulators have been shown to play a role in fly aggression [5][6][7] .…”

Into the mind of a fly

“…Flies, both male and female, exhibit aggressive behaviours, with males fighting other males in the presence of a female and females jousting with females over food resources 56 . Kravitz has shown that fighting style differs between the sexes and is controlled by fru (ref.…”