Biology subjects

Long, T. A. F.

Publications and source records attributed to Long, T. A. F..

5 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2025

Social plasticity in reproduction in female Drosophila melanogaster!

The expression of behaviours in individuals are not always fixed and may vary according to the specific environmental conditions encountered by an individual. There is significant evidence that male fruit flies, Drosophila melanogaster, have the capacity to adjust their courtship behaviours depending on the social environment they encounter; however, the extent of plasticity in behavioural responses by females have received much less scrutiny. In this study, we set out to determine whether the presence and/or the types of conspecifics an individual female encounters influences her subsequent reproductive behaviour and patterns of egg production. In our assay, we housed medium-sized adult virgin females in experimental social treatments; either in isolation, or with other conspecific females (that were either of large- or small- body size) to observe how the presence and/or type of social interactions altered later reproductive decisions and outcomes. While in some instances female flies behaved differently depending on their housing treatment, these responses were not particularly consistent between flies obtained from different populations, nor with previously described patterns. Potential contributing factors for these results, and their implications for the future study of female reproductive plasticity are discussed.

evolutionary biology↗

bioRxiv2024

On the use of kinship and familiarity associated social information in mediating Drosophila melanogaster oviposition decisions

Decisions where an individual lays their eggs are important, as the choice may affect their offsprings survival and lifetime reproductive success. Information produced by conspecifics can potentially be useful in decision-making as this "social information" may provide an energetically cheaper means of assessing oviposition site suitability rather than acquiring it personally. However, as not all public information may be equally beneficial, cues produced by kin may be especially valuable as they might signal suitable microenvironments, and are associated with other fitness advantages resulting from improved foraging success and/or a decreased risk of competition/cannibalism compared to sites where unrelated conspecifics are located. Using the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, we explored whether public information use is associated with kin-based egg-laying decisions. Kinship is potentially recognized in several ways, including environmentally-associated proxy cues, so we explored whether there were biases in how focal females interacted with cues from conspecifics that differed in both genetic relatedness, and environmental "familiarity." In a series of inter-connected assays, we examined the behaviour of focal females that interacted with a choice of potential egg-laying substrates that differed in the manner of their prior conspecific exposure, and counted the offspring that eclosed from these different substrates. Sites that had exhibited cues produced by conspecific demonstrators were visited more, and yielded more focal offspring compared to unexposed substrates. Furthermore, patterns of bias in offspring production were consistent with ovipositing females exhibiting sensitivity to the kinship status of the prior substrates occupants. The basis of the kinship categorization by ovipositing females appears to be based on phenotypes that reflect true genetic relatedness, but the nature of the social information can be affected by other factors. These results further highlight the potential usefulness of D. melanogaster as a model to understand the evolution of social behaviour in the expression of decision-making.

evolutionary biology↗

bioRxiv2023

On the expression of reproductive plasticity in Drosophila melanogaster females in spatial and socially varying environments!

Individuals often adjust their behaviour based on their perception and experiences with the social and/or physical environment. In this study, we examined the extent of reproductive plasticity expressed in mating rates, mating latencies, mating durations, and offspring production in female fruit flies, Drosophila melanogaster, that encountered different numbers of males in different sized chambers. We found that mating latency length decreased with more courting males and smaller environments and that matings durations were longer in larger chambers and in the presence of two males. These results illustrate the sensitivity of these behavioural phenotypes to changes in local environmental conditions.

evolutionary biology↗

bioRxiv2022

Phenotypic extremes or extreme phenotypes? On the use of large and small-bodied "phenocopied" Drosophila melanogaster males in studies of sexual selection and conflict

In the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, variation in body size is influenced by a number of different factors and may be strongly associated with individual condition, performance and success in reproductive competitions. Consequently, intra-sexual variation in size in this model species has been frequently explored in order to better understand how sexual selection and sexual conflict may operate and shape evolutionary trajectories. However, measuring individual flies can often be logistically complicated and inefficient, which can result in limited sample sizes. Instead, many experiments use large and/or small body sizes that are created by manipulating the developmental conditions experienced during the larval stages, resulting in "phenocopied" flies whose phenotypes resemble what is seen at the extremes of a populations size distribution. While this practice is fairly common, there has been remarkedly few direct tests to empirically compare the behaviour or performance of phenocopied flies to similarly-sized individuals that grew up under typical developmental conditions. Contrary to assumptions that phenocopied flies are reasonable approximations, we found that both large and small-bodied phenocopied males frequently differed from their standard development equivalents in their mating frequencies, their lifetime reproductive successes, and in their effects on the fecundity of the females they interacted with. Our results highlight the complicated contributions of environment and genotype to the expression of body size phenotypes and lead us to strongly urge caution in the interpretation of studies solely replying upon phenocopied individuals.

evolutionary biology↗

bioRxiv2019

On the expression of co-operative feeding behaviour in 3rd instar Drosophila melanogaster larvae

Under poor nutritional conditions, 3rd instar Drosophila melanogaster larvae will work collaboratively in feeding clusters to obtain resources that cannot be reached individually. To better understand the conditions that influence the expression of this behaviour we examined the frequencies, the size and the membership in vials of flies that were initially seeded with either 100 or 200 eggs each using flies from both a large, outbred population and a replicate population that was homozygous for the bw allele. Overall, more feeding clusters, containing more larval participants were observed in the higher density vials compared to the lower density vials, consistent with the idea that this social behaviour is a response to dwindling resources in the environment. The presence of the bw allele did not result in greater egg-to-adult mortality, nor did it result in lower participation in feeding clusters.

evolutionary biology↗