Collective selection of food patches in Drosophila
Collective selection of food patches in Drosophila
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DOI：
10.1242/jeb.127431
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发表时间：
2016-03-01
影响因子：
2.8
通讯作者：
Simpson, Stephen J.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Lihoreau, Mathieu;Clarke, Ireni M.;Simpson, Stephen J.
果蝇黑腹果蝇已经成为研究社会互动的模式生物。尽管最近的研究描述了个体如何在食物上相互作用以获得营养和繁殖，但群体最初发展和分散的复杂动态几乎没有受到关注。在这里，我们研究了黑腹潜蝇集体觅食决策的动态，以及它们随种群规模和组成的变化。成虫和幼虫面临着在两个相同的、营养平衡的食物块之间进行选择的群体，它们不对称地分布自己，从而比另一个更多地利用其中一个块。由于苍蝇更快地加入食物，集体决策的速度随着群体规模的增加而增加。然而，较小的群体比较大的群体表现出更明显的分布不对称。利用计算机模拟，我们展示了这些非线性现象是如何从社会对被占领的食物区域的吸引中出现的，其影响的增加或竞争取决于群体规模。我们的结果为探索简单和遗传上易驯化的群体中复杂的营养选择动态提供了新的机会。
The fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster has emerged as a model organism for research on social interactions. Although recent studies have described how individuals interact on foods for nutrition and reproduction, the complex dynamics by which groups initially develop and disperse have received little attention. Here we investigated the dynamics of collective foraging decisions by D. melanogaster and their variation with group size and composition. Groups of adults and larvae facing a choice between two identical, nutritionally balanced food patches distributed themselves asymmetrically, thereby exploiting one patch more than the other. The speed of the collective decisions increased with group size, as a result of flies joining foods faster. However, smaller groups exhibited more pronounced distribution asymmetries than larger ones. Using computer simulations, we show how these non-linear phenomena can emerge from social attraction towards occupied food patches, whose effects add up or compete depending on group size. Our results open new opportunities for exploring complex dynamics of nutrient selection in simple and genetically tractable groups.