Houot, Benjamin
- University of Burgundy
Abstract
The evolution of powered flight in insects had major consequences for global biodiversity and involved the acquisition of adaptive processes allowing individuals to disperse to new ecological niches. Flies use both vision and olfactory input from their antennae to guide their flight; chemosensors on fly wings have been described, but their function remains mysterious. We studied Drosophila flight in a wind tunnel. By genetically manipulating wing chemosensors, we show that these structures play an essential role in flight performance with a sex-specific effect. Pheromonal systems are also involved in Drosophila flight guidance: transgenic expression of the pheromone production and detection gene, desat1, produced low, rapid flight that was absent in control flies. Our study suggests that the sex-specific modulation of free-flight odor tracking depends on gene expression in various fly tissues including wings and pheromonal-related tissues.
Published in
Scientific Reports
2017, volume: 7, article number: 40221
Publisher: NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
SLU Authors
UKÄ Subject classification
Genetics and Genomics
Behavioral Sciences Biology
Publication identifier
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/srep40221
Permanent link to this page (URI)
https://res.slu.se/id/publ/90721