Abstract
In populations of Drosophila larvae, both, an aggregation and a dispersal behavior can be observed. However, the mechanisms coordinating larval locomotion in respect to other animals, especially in close proximity and during/after physical contacts are currently only little understood. Here we test whether relevant information is perceived before or during larva-larva contacts, analyze its influence on behavior and ask whether larvae avoid or pursue collisions. Employing frustrated total internal reflection-based imaging (FIM) we first found that larvae visually detect other moving larvae in a narrow perceptive field and respond with characteristic escape reactions. To decipher larval locomotion not only before but also during the collision we utilized a two color FIM approach (FIM2c), which allowed to faithfully extract the posture and motion of colliding animals. We show that during collision, larval locomotion freezes and sensory information is sampled during a KISS phase (german: Kollisions Induziertes Stopp Syndrom or english: collision induced stop syndrome). Interestingly, larvae react differently to living, dead or artificial larvae, discriminate other Drosophila species and have an increased bending probability for a short period after the collision terminates. Thus, Drosophila larvae evolved means to specify behaviors in response to other larvae.
Highlights
Have been described that ensure species-specific recognition of larvae[2] but olfactory preference of individual larvae is not modulated by surrounding larvae[13]
We recently showed that frustrated total internal reflection (FTIR) provides an unprecedented high contrast view on crawling animals and developed the FTIR-based imaging (FIM) setup[14]
Whenever animals move in dense populations recognition of interaction partners and environment is beneficial
Summary
Have been described that ensure species-specific recognition of larvae[2] but olfactory preference of individual larvae is not modulated by surrounding larvae[13]. We asked whether Drosophila larvae have evolved means to change their locomotion behavior in response to other larvae in dense populations. To study these aspects, automated tracking and analysis tools are required. For a simultaneous analysis of multiple animals with different markers we developed FIM2c (FIM two color[20]). This technology for the first time allows resolving interacting animals during a collision event in a multi-target imaging approach for high throughput experiments. Our studies support the hypothesis that Drosophila larvae perceive the presence of other larvae and reveal a stereotypic influence on behavior which has to be considered carefully in multi-animal tracking approaches
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