Collective action or individual choice: Spontaneity and individuality contribute to decision-making in Drosophila.

ABSTRACT: Our own unique character traits make our behavior consistent and define our individuality. Yet, this consistency does not entail that we behave repetitively like machines. Like humans, animals also combine personality traits with spontaneity to produce adaptive behavior: consistent, but not fully predictable. Here, we study an iconically rigid behavioral trait, insect phototaxis, that nevertheless also contains both components of individuality and spontaneity. In a light/dark T-maze, approximately 70% of a group of Drosophila fruit flies choose the bright arm of the T-Maze, while the remaining 30% walk into the dark. Taking the photopositive and the photonegative subgroups and re-testing them reveals the spontaneous component: a similar 70-30 distribution emerges in each of the two subgrou

SUBMITTER: Steymans I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8389364 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature