16 Elements of Courtship Behavior in Drosophila

Abstract

Courtship in the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, qualifies as one of the most intricate, ingrained behaviors to become a focus of laboratory research. The elaborate, stereotypical routine that male flies go through in their efforts to woo females consists of a complex sequence of fixed action patterns that requires sensory stimuli emanating from the female and involves a series of interactions between the two participants. The innateness of many aspects of this behavior, requiring no prior observation or practice on the part of the male, has made it an attractive target for combined studies of genetics and behavior. Its stereotypical character, however, has sometimes obscured the fact that courtship is a subtle dance between two partners, involving the exchange of a variety of sensory cues that are integrated to produce changes in arousal levels in the nervous system as reflected in the intensity and responsiveness of each fly’s behavior. In addition to communication between partners, there are also environmental parameters that influence the probability and quality of courtship behavior. Many of these combinatorial features have only been superficially investigated, but they are pointed out in the following discussion because they represent important areas for future research.

The impetus for contemporary courtship studies grew out of early ethology, specifically the laboratory of Nikolaas Tinbergen at Oxford, where Margaret Bastock and Aubrey Manning realized that the genetic potential of the fruit fly made it a promising subject for study. They characterized the male’s routine in detail, tested several mutant strains, and launched...