'Foraging' for a place to lay eggs: A genetic link between foraging behaviour and oviposition preferences.

Gravid female arthropods in search of egg-laying substrates embark on foraging-like forays: they survey the environment assessing multiple patches, tasting each with their tarsi and proboscis, and then, if interested, they deposit an egg (or eggs). In fruit flies, Drosophila melanogaster, allelic va...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Murray W McConnell, Mark J Fitzpatrick
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2017-01-01
Series:PLoS ONE
Online Access:https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0179362&type=printable
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1849715551423692800
author Murray W McConnell
Mark J Fitzpatrick
author_facet Murray W McConnell
Mark J Fitzpatrick
author_sort Murray W McConnell
collection DOAJ
description Gravid female arthropods in search of egg-laying substrates embark on foraging-like forays: they survey the environment assessing multiple patches, tasting each with their tarsi and proboscis, and then, if interested, they deposit an egg (or eggs). In fruit flies, Drosophila melanogaster, allelic variation in the foraging gene (for) underlies the rover/sitter foraging behaviour polymorphism. Rover flies (forR) are more active foragers (both within and between food patches) compared to sitters (fors). In nematodes, Caenorhabditis elegans, a mutation in egl-4, the ortholog of for, leads to aberrations in egg laying. Given this and the notion that females may 'forage' for a place to oviposit, we hypothesized that for may underlie egg-laying decisions in the fruit fly. Indeed, when given a choice between patches of low- and high-nutrient availability, rovers lay significantly more eggs on the low-nutrient patches than sitters and also a sitter mutant (fors2). We confirm the role of for by inducing rover-like oviposition preferences in a sitter fly using the transgenic overexpression of for-mRNA in the nervous system.
format Article
id doaj-art-e57cd3cfbdd54fc2af1b4e759a023f89
institution DOAJ
issn 1932-6203
language English
publishDate 2017-01-01
publisher Public Library of Science (PLoS)
record_format Article
series PLoS ONE
spelling doaj-art-e57cd3cfbdd54fc2af1b4e759a023f892025-08-20T03:13:19ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032017-01-01126e017936210.1371/journal.pone.0179362'Foraging' for a place to lay eggs: A genetic link between foraging behaviour and oviposition preferences.Murray W McConnellMark J FitzpatrickGravid female arthropods in search of egg-laying substrates embark on foraging-like forays: they survey the environment assessing multiple patches, tasting each with their tarsi and proboscis, and then, if interested, they deposit an egg (or eggs). In fruit flies, Drosophila melanogaster, allelic variation in the foraging gene (for) underlies the rover/sitter foraging behaviour polymorphism. Rover flies (forR) are more active foragers (both within and between food patches) compared to sitters (fors). In nematodes, Caenorhabditis elegans, a mutation in egl-4, the ortholog of for, leads to aberrations in egg laying. Given this and the notion that females may 'forage' for a place to oviposit, we hypothesized that for may underlie egg-laying decisions in the fruit fly. Indeed, when given a choice between patches of low- and high-nutrient availability, rovers lay significantly more eggs on the low-nutrient patches than sitters and also a sitter mutant (fors2). We confirm the role of for by inducing rover-like oviposition preferences in a sitter fly using the transgenic overexpression of for-mRNA in the nervous system.https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0179362&type=printable
spellingShingle Murray W McConnell
Mark J Fitzpatrick
'Foraging' for a place to lay eggs: A genetic link between foraging behaviour and oviposition preferences.
PLoS ONE
title 'Foraging' for a place to lay eggs: A genetic link between foraging behaviour and oviposition preferences.
title_full 'Foraging' for a place to lay eggs: A genetic link between foraging behaviour and oviposition preferences.
title_fullStr 'Foraging' for a place to lay eggs: A genetic link between foraging behaviour and oviposition preferences.
title_full_unstemmed 'Foraging' for a place to lay eggs: A genetic link between foraging behaviour and oviposition preferences.
title_short 'Foraging' for a place to lay eggs: A genetic link between foraging behaviour and oviposition preferences.
title_sort foraging for a place to lay eggs a genetic link between foraging behaviour and oviposition preferences
url https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0179362&type=printable
work_keys_str_mv AT murraywmcconnell foragingforaplacetolayeggsageneticlinkbetweenforagingbehaviourandovipositionpreferences
AT markjfitzpatrick foragingforaplacetolayeggsageneticlinkbetweenforagingbehaviourandovipositionpreferences