Love Thy Neighbour? Social and Sexual Accommodation in Fruitfies

许多物种的个体适应环境以提高其潜在的竞争力。一个熟悉的例子是“言语模仿”，即人们经常无意中采用周围人的口音或言语模式。在果蝇中，雄性对它们的社会和性环境表现出精确的反应。在发现同种竞争对手后，雄性将更多的精液蛋白质转移给雌性，并产生更多的后代。雄性利用多个冗余的感官输入来发现对手。第一个目的是测试这个系统是强大的，免疫误触发，并赋予显着的好处的想法。我们最近对暴露于竞争对手的男性的基因表达进行了分析，揭示了冗余的特征，类似的感觉输入遵循不同的途径，导致相同的输出。第二个目标是通过分析缺乏感觉输入的雄性动物的基因表达模式，直接测试这种基因组冗余。最后的目的是测试是否相同的规则适用于检测密切相关的物种的男性的相互作用。识别中的“错误”显然与亲缘关系或杂交潜力无关。拟议的项目是识别识别机制的最前沿，与昆虫控制有关，通过利用我们的知识通过基因沉默操纵生殖生物学。

Individuals of many species adjust to their environment to increase their potential competitiveness. A familiar example is 'speech accommodation', where individuals, often unintentionally, adopt the accent or speech patterns of those around them. In fruitflies, males show precise responses to their social and sexual environment. Following detection of conspecific rivals, males transfer more ejaculate proteins to females and sire more offspring. Males detect rivals using multiple, redundant sensory inputs. The first aim is to test the idea that this system is robust, immune to mis-firing and confers significant benefits. Our recent analysis of gene expression in males exposed to rivals reveals a signature of redundancy, with similar sensory inputs following different pathways to result in the same output. The second aim is to test directly for such genomic redundancy, by analyzing the gene expression patterns of responding males that lack sensory inputs. The final aim is to test whether the same rules apply to detection in interactions involving males of closely related species. 'Mistakes' in identification are apparently not related to relatedness or the potential to hybridise.The proposed project is at the forefront of identifying recognition mechanisms and is relevant to insect control, by using our knowledge to manipulate reproductive biology via gene silencing.