Skip to main content
Advertisement

Main menu

  • Home
  • Articles
    • Accepted manuscripts
    • Issue in progress
    • Latest complete issue
    • Issue archive
    • Archive by article type
    • Special issues
    • Subject collections
    • Interviews
    • Sign up for alerts
  • About us
    • About JEB
    • Editors and Board
    • Editor biographies
    • Travelling Fellowships
    • Grants and funding
    • Journal Meetings
    • Workshops
    • The Company of Biologists
    • Journal news
  • For authors
    • Submit a manuscript
    • Aims and scope
    • Presubmission enquiries
    • Article types
    • Manuscript preparation
    • Cover suggestions
    • Editorial process
    • Promoting your paper
    • Open Access
    • Outstanding paper prize
    • Biology Open transfer
  • Journal info
    • Journal policies
    • Rights and permissions
    • Media policies
    • Reviewer guide
    • Sign up for alerts
  • Contacts
    • Contact JEB
    • Subscriptions
    • Advertising
    • Feedback
  • COB
    • About The Company of Biologists
    • Development
    • Journal of Cell Science
    • Journal of Experimental Biology
    • Disease Models & Mechanisms
    • Biology Open

User menu

  • Log in

Search

  • Advanced search
Journal of Experimental Biology
  • COB
    • About The Company of Biologists
    • Development
    • Journal of Cell Science
    • Journal of Experimental Biology
    • Disease Models & Mechanisms
    • Biology Open

supporting biologistsinspiring biology

Journal of Experimental Biology

  • Log in
Advanced search

RSS  Twitter  Facebook  YouTube  

  • Home
  • Articles
    • Accepted manuscripts
    • Issue in progress
    • Latest complete issue
    • Issue archive
    • Archive by article type
    • Special issues
    • Subject collections
    • Interviews
    • Sign up for alerts
  • About us
    • About JEB
    • Editors and Board
    • Editor biographies
    • Travelling Fellowships
    • Grants and funding
    • Journal Meetings
    • Workshops
    • The Company of Biologists
    • Journal news
  • For authors
    • Submit a manuscript
    • Aims and scope
    • Presubmission enquiries
    • Article types
    • Manuscript preparation
    • Cover suggestions
    • Editorial process
    • Promoting your paper
    • Open Access
    • Outstanding paper prize
    • Biology Open transfer
  • Journal info
    • Journal policies
    • Rights and permissions
    • Media policies
    • Reviewer guide
    • Sign up for alerts
  • Contacts
    • Contact JEB
    • Subscriptions
    • Advertising
    • Feedback
Research Article
Social foraging extends associative odor–food memory expression in an automated learning assay for Drosophila melanogaster
Aarti Sehdev, Yunusa G. Mohammed, Cansu Tafrali, Paul Szyszka
Journal of Experimental Biology 2019 222: jeb207241 doi: 10.1242/jeb.207241 Published 8 October 2019
Aarti Sehdev
Department of Biology, Neurobiology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz 78457, Germany
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Yunusa G. Mohammed
Department of Biology, Neurobiology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz 78457, Germany
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Cansu Tafrali
Department of Biology, Neurobiology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz 78457, Germany
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Paul Szyszka
Department of Biology, Neurobiology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz 78457, GermanyDepartment of Zoology, University of Otago, Dunedin 9054, New Zealand
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Paul Szyszka
  • For correspondence: paul@szyszkalab.com
  • Article
  • Figures & tables
  • Supp info
  • Info & metrics
  • PDF + SI
  • PDF
Loading

ABSTRACT

Animals socially interact during foraging and share information about the quality and location of food sources. The mechanisms of social information transfer during foraging have been mostly studied at the behavioral level, and its underlying neural mechanisms are largely unknown. Fruit flies have become a model for studying the neural bases of social information transfer, because they provide a large genetic toolbox to monitor and manipulate neuronal activity, and they show a rich repertoire of social behaviors. Fruit flies aggregate, they use social information for choosing a suitable mating partner and oviposition site, and they show better aversive learning when in groups. However, the effects of social interactions on associative odor–food learning have not yet been investigated. Here, we present an automated learning and memory assay for walking flies that allows the study of the effect of group size on social interactions and on the formation and expression of associative odor–food memories. We found that both inter-fly attraction and the duration of odor–food memory expression increase with group size. This study opens up opportunities to investigate how social interactions during foraging are relayed in the neural circuitry of learning and memory expression.

FOOTNOTES

  • Competing interests

    The authors declare no competing or financial interests.

  • Author contributions

    Conceptualization: P.S.; Methodology: P.S.; Formal analysis: A.S.; Investigation: C.T.; Writing - original draft: A.S., Y.G.M., P.S.; Writing - review & editing: A.S., Y.G.M., C.T., P.S.; Visualization: A.S.; Supervision: P.S.; Project administration: P.S.; Funding acquisition: P.S.

  • Funding

    This project was funded by the Human Frontier Science Program (RGP0053/2015) to P.S. and by the International Max Planck Research Schools (IMPRS), Organismal Biology, University of Konstanz, to A.S. and Y.M.

  • Data availability

    Tracking data are available from the Dryad Digital Repository: https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.77hs873.

  • Supplementary information

    Supplementary information available online at http://jeb.biologists.org/lookup/doi/10.1242/jeb.207241.supplemental

  • Received May 15, 2019.
  • Accepted September 11, 2019.
  • © 2019. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd
http://www.biologists.com/user-licence-1-1/
View Full Text

Log in using your username and password

Forgot your user name or password?

Log in through your institution

You may be able to gain access using your login credentials for your institution. Contact your library if you do not have a username and password.
If your organization uses OpenAthens, you can log in using your OpenAthens username and password. To check if your institution is supported, please see this list. Contact your library for more details.

Pay Per Article - You may access this article (from the computer you are currently using) for 1 day for US$30.00 .

Regain Access - You can regain access to a recent Pay per Article purchase if your access period has not yet expired.

Previous ArticleNext Article
Back to top
Previous ArticleNext Article

This Issue

Keywords

  • Social interactions
  • Social information transfer
  • Odor–food learning
  • Associative memory
  • Collective foraging
  • Drosophila melanogaster
  • Automated classical conditioning

 Download PDF

Email

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word on Journal of Experimental Biology.

NOTE: We only request your email address so that the person you are recommending the page to knows that you wanted them to see it, and that it is not junk mail. We do not capture any email address.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Social foraging extends associative odor–food memory expression in an automated learning assay for Drosophila melanogaster
(Your Name) has sent you a message from Journal of Experimental Biology
(Your Name) thought you would like to see the Journal of Experimental Biology web site.
Share
Research Article
Social foraging extends associative odor–food memory expression in an automated learning assay for Drosophila melanogaster
Aarti Sehdev, Yunusa G. Mohammed, Cansu Tafrali, Paul Szyszka
Journal of Experimental Biology 2019 222: jeb207241 doi: 10.1242/jeb.207241 Published 8 October 2019
del.icio.us logo Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo CiteULike logo Facebook logo Google logo Mendeley logo
Citation Tools
Research Article
Social foraging extends associative odor–food memory expression in an automated learning assay for Drosophila melanogaster
Aarti Sehdev, Yunusa G. Mohammed, Cansu Tafrali, Paul Szyszka
Journal of Experimental Biology 2019 222: jeb207241 doi: 10.1242/jeb.207241 Published 8 October 2019

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
Alerts

Please log in to add an alert for this article.

Sign in to email alerts with your email address

Article navigation

  • Top
  • Article
    • ABSTRACT
    • INTRODUCTION
    • MATERIALS AND METHODS
    • RESULTS
    • DISCUSSION
    • Acknowledgements
    • FOOTNOTES
    • References
  • Figures & tables
  • Supp info
  • Info & metrics
  • PDF + SI
  • PDF

Related articles

Cited by...

More in this TOC section

  • Load carrying with flexible bamboo poles: optimization of a coupled oscillator system
  • Communication versus waterproofing: the physics of insect cuticular hydrocarbons
  • Effects of environmental enrichment on forebrain neural plasticity and survival success of stocked Atlantic salmon
Show more RESEARCH ARTICLE

Similar articles

Subject collections

  • Neuroethology

Other journals from The Company of Biologists

Development

Journal of Cell Science

Disease Models & Mechanisms

Biology Open

Advertisement

Editorial – The changing of the guard

In his Editorial, Hans Hoppeler announces that he will be stepping down as Editor-in-Chief of JEB in July 2020. He reflects on the history of JEB, why he has enjoyed his tenure as JEB’s Editor-in-Chief and the recent developments in the publishing world.


Big Biology podcast

JEB is partnering with the Big Biology podcast and in this sponsored episode, JEB Editor Michael Dickinson talks to the Big Biology team about the aerodynamic mechanisms of insect flight, how insects control flight with their tiny 100k neuron brain and his recent JEB paper showing how fruit flies navigate using the sun and polarized light as a compass.


Editors’ choice – An appetite for invasion: digestive physiology, thermal performance and food intake in lionfish (Pterois spp.)

A lionfish

Invasive lionfish are a colossal problem in the Mediterranean Sea and western Atlantic Ocean. Now it turns out that they are successful invaders because they invest more energy in digestion than moving about.


Travelling Fellowship – Anti-ageing in the Greenland Shark

Group photo of Pierre Delaroche and the team in Greenland

Find out how Pierre Delaroche’s Travelling Fellowship grant from the Journal of Experimental Biology took him to Greenland, where he gathered data to further understand the ageing process in the longest-living vertebrate known to science. Don’t miss the next application deadline for 2020 travel, coming up on 29 November. Where will your research take you?


Commentary – Yank: the time derivative of force is an important biomechanical variable in sensorimotor systems

A diagram showing the multi-scale anatomical structures and processes that determine the magnitude of yank

The derivative of force with respect to time does not have a standard term in physics. In their new Commentary, David C. Lin and his colleagues propose that the term ‘yank’ should be used to denote the time derivative of force.


Inside JEB – Springy ankle tether saves runners

Time-lapse photographs of a runner using the exotendon.

Runners waste energy every time their legs stop swinging, but now a team of scientists from the US and Canada have shown that a springy ankle tether can reduce runners’ energy costs by 6.4%, which is nearly the entire cost of swinging the limbs. Read the full research article here.


JEB partners with Publons!

Journal of Experimental Biology is pleased to announce a new partnership with Publons! This allows reviewers to easily track and verify every review by choosing to add the review to their Publons profile when completing the review submission form. Publons also makes it simple for reviewers to showcase their peer review contributions in a format that can be included in job and funding applications (without breaking reviewer anonymity). Read the official announcement here!


preLights – Oxygenation properties of hemoglobin and the evolutionary origins of isoform multiplicity in an amphibious air-breathing fish, the blue-spotted mudskipper (Boleophthalmus pectinirostris)

Charlotte Nelson

Charlotte Nelson highlights work in mudskippers suggesting that a diversity in expressed hemoglobin isoforms is not required for the switch between aquatic and aerial respiration.

Articles

  • Accepted manuscripts
  • Issue in progress
  • Latest complete issue
  • Issue archive
  • Archive by article type
  • Special issues
  • Subject collections
  • Interviews
  • Sign up for alerts

About us

  • About JEB
  • Editors and Board
  • Editor biographies
  • Travelling Fellowships
  • Grants and funding
  • Journal Meetings
  • Workshops
  • The Company of Biologists
  • Journal news

For Authors

  • Submit a manuscript
  • Aims and scope
  • Presubmission enquiries
  • Article types
  • Manuscript preparation
  • Cover suggestions
  • Editorial process
  • Promoting your paper
  • Open Access
  • Outstanding paper prize
  • Biology Open transfer

Journal Info

  • Journal policies
  • Rights and permissions
  • Media policies
  • Reviewer guide
  • Sign up for alerts

Contact

  • Contact JEB
  • Subscriptions
  • Advertising
  • Feedback

 Twitter   YouTube   LinkedIn

© 2019   The Company of Biologists Ltd   Registered Charity 277992