Abstract
Little is known about how Drosophila adults behave in the wild, including mating, allocation of food and space, and escape from predators. This lack of information has negative implications for our ability to understand the capabilities of the nervous system to integrate sensory cues necessary for the adaptation of organisms in natural conditions. We characterized a set of behavioral routines of D. melanogaster and D. simulans adults in three ecologically different orchards: grape, apple and prickly pear. We also investigated how the flies identify conspecifics and aliens in the wild to better understand relationships between group formation and adaptation of Drosophila to breeding sites. We characterized the locations by recording in each orchard humidity, temperature, illumination conditions, pH of fruits, the presence/absence of other Drosophila species and the predator ant Linepithema humile. Our findings suggest that the home range of these species of Drosophila includes decaying fruits and, principally, a variety of microhabitats that surround the fruits. The ecological heterogeneity of the orchards and odors emitted by adult D. melanogaster and D. simulans influence perch preferences, cluster formation, court and mating, egg-laying site selection, and use of space. This is one of the first large examinations of the association between changing, complex environments and a set of adult behaviors of Drosophila. Therefore, our results have implications for understanding the genetic differentiation and evolution of populations of species in the genus Drosophila.
Highlights
Interactions between parts of an organism and between complete organisms intersect in the concept of the biological organization, extending from the molecular level, such as assemblages of chemosensory proteins in Vibrio cholerae, to grouped distributions of animals in the wild [1, 2]
We studied the orientation of the movements of the sexes of D. melanogaster and D. simulans stimulated at distance by odors of conspecifics and aliens
In the absence of vials with conspecific odorants and odorants of the sibling species, approximately 95% of non-virgin and virgin male and female D. melanogaster and D. simulans stayed in the flask, while 5% of the flies were randomly distributed in the Y-tubes
Summary
Interactions between parts of an organism and between complete organisms intersect in the concept of the biological organization, extending from the molecular level, such as assemblages of chemosensory proteins in Vibrio cholerae, to grouped distributions of animals in the wild [1, 2]. Such reciprocal influences ensure that biological organization is expressed in a coordinate manner in relation to environmental changes [3]. The capability to attract conspecifics and avoid or evade adults of other species has a principal role in the adaptation of animal species in natural conditions and has implications ranging from formation of social groups to the emergence of new species
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