Dyeing Insects for Behavioral Assays: the Mating Behavior of Anesthetized Drosophila

Mating experiments using Drosophila have contributed greatly to the understanding of sexual selection and behavior. Experiments often require simple, easy and cheap methods to distinguish between individuals in a trial. A standard technique for this is CO2 anaesthesia and then labelling or wing clip...

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Main Authors:	Verspoor, Rudi L., Heys, Chloe, Price, Thomas A. R.
Format:	Online
Language:	English
Published:	MyJove Corporation 2015
Online Access:	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4541581/

id	pubmed-4541581
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	pubmed-45415812015-08-31 Dyeing Insects for Behavioral Assays: the Mating Behavior of Anesthetized Drosophila Verspoor, Rudi L. Heys, Chloe Price, Thomas A. R. Neuroscience Mating experiments using Drosophila have contributed greatly to the understanding of sexual selection and behavior. Experiments often require simple, easy and cheap methods to distinguish between individuals in a trial. A standard technique for this is CO2 anaesthesia and then labelling or wing clipping each fly. However, this is invasive and has been shown to affect behavior. Other techniques have used coloration to identify flies. This article presents a simple and non-invasive method for labelling Drosophila that allows them to be individually identified within experiments, using food coloring. This method is used in trials where two males compete to mate with a female. Dyeing allowed quick and easy identification. There was, however, some difference in the strength of the coloration across the three species tested. Data is presented showing the dye has a lower impact on mating behavior than CO2 in Drosophila melanogaster. The impact of CO2 anaesthesia is shown to depend on the species of Drosophila, with D. pseudoobscura and D. subobscura showing no impact, whereas D. melanogaster males had reduced mating success. The dye method presented is applicable to a wide range of experimental designs. MyJove Corporation 2015-04-22 /pmc/articles/PMC4541581/ /pubmed/25938821 http://dx.doi.org/10.3791/52645 Text en Copyright © 2015, Journal of Visualized Experiments http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction, provided the original work is properly cited.
repository_type	Open Access Journal
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	US National Center for Biotechnology Information
building	NCBI PubMed
collection	Online Access
language	English
format	Online
author	Verspoor, Rudi L. Heys, Chloe Price, Thomas A. R.
spellingShingle	Verspoor, Rudi L. Heys, Chloe Price, Thomas A. R. Dyeing Insects for Behavioral Assays: the Mating Behavior of Anesthetized Drosophila
author_facet	Verspoor, Rudi L. Heys, Chloe Price, Thomas A. R.
author_sort	Verspoor, Rudi L.
title	Dyeing Insects for Behavioral Assays: the Mating Behavior of Anesthetized Drosophila
title_short	Dyeing Insects for Behavioral Assays: the Mating Behavior of Anesthetized Drosophila
title_full	Dyeing Insects for Behavioral Assays: the Mating Behavior of Anesthetized Drosophila
title_fullStr	Dyeing Insects for Behavioral Assays: the Mating Behavior of Anesthetized Drosophila
title_full_unstemmed	Dyeing Insects for Behavioral Assays: the Mating Behavior of Anesthetized Drosophila
title_sort	dyeing insects for behavioral assays: the mating behavior of anesthetized drosophila
description	Mating experiments using Drosophila have contributed greatly to the understanding of sexual selection and behavior. Experiments often require simple, easy and cheap methods to distinguish between individuals in a trial. A standard technique for this is CO2 anaesthesia and then labelling or wing clipping each fly. However, this is invasive and has been shown to affect behavior. Other techniques have used coloration to identify flies. This article presents a simple and non-invasive method for labelling Drosophila that allows them to be individually identified within experiments, using food coloring. This method is used in trials where two males compete to mate with a female. Dyeing allowed quick and easy identification. There was, however, some difference in the strength of the coloration across the three species tested. Data is presented showing the dye has a lower impact on mating behavior than CO2 in Drosophila melanogaster. The impact of CO2 anaesthesia is shown to depend on the species of Drosophila, with D. pseudoobscura and D. subobscura showing no impact, whereas D. melanogaster males had reduced mating success. The dye method presented is applicable to a wide range of experimental designs.
publisher	MyJove Corporation
publishDate	2015
url	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4541581/
_version_	1613261352871133184

Dyeing Insects for Behavioral Assays: the Mating Behavior of Anesthetized Drosophila

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