Object preference by walking fruit flies, Drosophila melanogaster, is mediated by vision and graviperception.

ABSTRACT: Walking fruit flies, Drosophila melanogaster, use visual information to orient towards salient objects in their environment, presumably as a search strategy for finding food, shelter or other resources. Less is known, however, about the role of vision or other sensory modalities such as mechanoreception in the evaluation of objects once they have been reached. To study the role of vision and mechanoreception in exploration behavior, we developed a large arena in which we could track individual fruit flies as they walked through either simple or more topologically complex landscapes. When exploring a simple, flat environment lacking three-dimensional objects, flies used visual cues from the distant background to stabilize their walking trajectories. When exploring an arena containing an arr

SUBMITTER: Robie AA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2892423 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature