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Pupation Site Selection in Four Drosophilid Species: Aggregation and Contact

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Abstract

This study of pupation site selection was undertaken to assess the frequency and orientation of pupae making physical contact in four sympatric species in the family Drosophilidae: Drosophila melanogaster, D. simulans, D. funebris, and Zaprionus tuberculatus. Pupation behavior was assayed in a vial containing a small food cup. Using nearest-neighbor analysis, we found that pupae were aggregated. Furthermore, the frequency of contact between pupae was far greater than could be explained by chance, in all four species. In the three species of Drosophila, about a third of the contacts were between intimately paired pupae whose long axes were parallel; we call this arrangement synapsis. In Z. tuberculatus, most pupal contacts were unoriented. When D. melanogaster larvae were reared with each of the other species, heterospecific pupal contact, including synapsis, occurred. Our discovery of pupal contact in several drosophilids expands the known repertory of social behavior in this family.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Danny Segal for donating laboratory supplies and providing access to the Tel Aviv University library, Bill Glanz for his invaluable advice in the nearest-neighbor analysis, the Bloomington Drosophila Stock Center, Indiana University, for supplying Drosophila stocks, and AmnonFreidberg for confirming the identification of Zaprionus tuberculatus.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Ethological Genetics, 12 Shalom Yehuda Street, Jerusalem, 93395, Israel

    John Ringo

  2. Emeritus Professor of Biology, University of Maine, Orono, ME, USA

    John Ringo

  3. School of Biology and Ecology and Department of Mathematics, University of Maine, Orono, ME, USA

    Harold Dowse

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  1. John Ringo
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  2. Harold Dowse
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Correspondence to John Ringo.

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Ringo, J., Dowse, H. Pupation Site Selection in Four Drosophilid Species: Aggregation and Contact. J Insect Behav 25, 578–589 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10905-012-9324-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10905-012-9324-x

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