Fruit flies, or Drosophila melanogaster, are among the most studied materials because they provide an inexpensive and accessible platform for researching biological processes. Although they might not seem very different from humans, fruit flies share 75 percent of our disease-causing genes, which is why scientists have used them to better understand human disease.
Researchers reported long ago that these tiny insects make a deliberate strategy, known as cast and surge, to find food sources in windy areas. In this way, the fruit fly catches the smell of something sweet, swings the wind to follow the smell and throws the side when it loses the smell to find it again.
Scientists explained that catching a smell in the air does not mean that the source is nearby. Instead, perhaps the wind was carrying the scent from afar. As a result, the drop and flow method is an effective way to track the origin of odors in the air.
So what happens when there is no soul?
“They have another trick,” said Marcus Stensmyr, an associate professor of sensory biology at Lund University who was not involved in the study.
Trick when there is no wind: Flies make a sink and circle motion. The authors found that when the flies met and lost their scent in still air, they swooped down to try to find the source of the scent.
This behavior may not be alarming – most cartoon flies show them circling around a smelly mound of food. However, this is the first time scientists have reported how fruit flies behave in still-air environments, confirming long-standing human assumptions.
In still air, catching a scent indicates that the source is close, bringing the sink and the ring closer together.
Some researchers have suggested that dogs and rats exhibit the same behavior when they sniff up and down to mask a scent.
To conduct their study, the authors first had to find a way to stimulate the smell of the fly in a vacuum. But how do you give fragrance without air? David Stupski, lead author of the study and a postdoctoral researcher in biology and engineering at the University of Nevada in Reno, explained the scientists. approach as “a real object of the sense of smell.”
They used genetically modified flies that had neurons implanted with light in their horns, which are actually the fly’s nose. As a result, the authors could make the fly smell by using red light rays instead of the actual smell. The light-based method allowed the researchers to avoid the problem associated with providing controlled odor clouds, which are difficult to obtain in space.
The authors could easily turn the lights on and off to provide light as a substitute for scents. The researchers conducted their study in a custom-built wind tunnel equipped with 12 cameras to monitor the fly’s movement in three dimensions. Monitoring insects in their natural habitat, in flight, is notoriously difficult, which is why most research is done on hoverflies, as their movement is two-dimensional rather than one-dimensional. three.
After noticing that fruit flies move differently depending on wind conditions, the authors concluded that fruit flies can sense the presence and direction of wind.
“If you stick your head out of the car window while driving, can you tell if it’s windy or not?” asks Floris van Breugel, the study’s principal investigator and assistant professor of mechanical engineering. It’s hard to detect a breeze when you’re walking through the air, but fruit flies fly by.
The authors suggest that flies slow down and turn when they encounter a scent to detect the presence and direction of air.
“This is a complex computer that happens in this very small brain – which is said to be simple,” said Elizabeth Hong, a professor of neuroscience at the California Institute of Technology who was not involved in the study.
According to Richard Benton, a professor at the University of Lausanne who specializes in neurobiology, understanding how fruit flies follow odors can help scientists better understand harmful insects, such as mosquitoes. Scientists are particularly interested in preventing mosquitoes’ ability to find and feed on humans to reduce disease transmission.
Fly olfation may also inform the next generation of tracking devices designed to locate the source of indoor chemical leaks.
Maybe this lesson can get some respect from fruit flies. After all, they have found a way to thrive alongside humans by picking up scents in our airless homes.
“They have little brains,” said Benton, “but they make a lot of it.”
#fruit #flies #smarter