902A Poster - 14. Neural circuits and behavior
Thursday April 07, 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM

Authors:
Meagan Ash; Todd Schlenke

Affiliation: University of Arizona, Department of Entomology, Tucson, AZ

Keywords:
l. locomotion/flight; m. mechanosensation

Drosophila melanogaster is a widely used model organism to uncover molecular mechanisms regulating natural behaviors. In the wild, fly larvae experience high rates of attack from endoparasitoid wasps. These wasps inject their eggs into the body of the insect wherein the wasp egg hatches, and the resulting wasp larva eventually consumes the host tissue. Drosophila larvae mount a cellular immune response against infection whereby the wasp eggs are encapsulated, melanized, and killed, which wasps attempt to suppress by injecting venoms along with their eggs. Drosophila larvae also perform defensive behaviors in the presence of wasps to avoid parasitism, such as moving away from wasp odors, rolling to interrupt wasp oviposition, and self-medication with ethanol to increase their toxicity to the wasp larvae inside them. Here, we describe a new larval defensive behavior in which more larvae burrow into the food substrate in the presence of wasps. We investigate the causes and adaptive value of this behavior, as well as the neurobiological mechanisms underlying it.