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First published online January 3, 2006
Journal of Experimental Biology 209, 364-371 (2006)
Published by The Company of Biologists 2006
doi: 10.1242/jeb.01999

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Drosophila melanogaster locomotion in cold thin air

Michael E. Dillon^* and Melanie R. Frazier

Department of Biology, Box 351800, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195-1800, USA

View larger version (18K): [in a new window]   Fig. 1. Experimental setup for assessing flight ability of D. melanogaster. Ten bottles were connected in series to test ten flies simultaneously. Flies were held for 5 min in the Eppendorf tube to acclimate to the treatment. The lid of the tube was then removed with a magnet, releasing the fly into the chamber. We ranked flight performance as one of three categories: flew above the fluon line within 2 min (`flight'), flew within an additional 2 min period while the bottle was gently tapped (`coerced flight'), or failed to fly (`no flight').

View larger version (17K): [in a new window]   Fig. 2. Temperature and air pressure (% sea-level pressure) significantly affected walking speed of Drosophila melanogaster females (both P<0.001; Table 1). See text for measurement details. Points are shifted slightly to make vertical s.e.m. bars visible.

View larger version (29K): [in a new window]   Fig. 3. Effects of temperature and air pressure (% sea-level pressure) on flight performance of Drosophila melanogaster. For each temperature (columns) and pressure (rows) treatment, an individual bar graph represents the counts of flies in each flight performance category: `flight' (open bars), `coerced flight' (hatched bars), `no flight' (filled bars).

View larger version (16K): [in a new window]   Fig. 4. Temperature and air pressure effects on flight failure (probability of `no flight') of D. melanogaster as predicted by ordinal logistic regression. Pressures tested were 33%, 50%, 66% and 100% sea-level pressure. Values are means ± s.e.m.; see text for analysis.

View larger version (20K): [in a new window]   Fig. 5. Temperature and air pressure effects on flight motivation (probability of flight without coercion) for D. melanogaster as predicted by ordinal logistic regression. Pressures tested were 33%, 50%, 66% and 100% sea-level pressure. Values are means ± s.e.m.; see text for analysis.

View larger version (20K): [in a new window]   Fig. 6. Relationship between wing loading and body mass for all flies tested for flight performance. Wing loading did not affect flight performance (Table 2): `flight' (open circles), `coerced flight' (gray filled circles) and `no flight' (filled circles).