Social communication of predator-induced changes in Drosophila behavior and germline physiology

Abstract
Article and author information
Metrics

Abstract

Behavioral adaptation to environmental threats and subsequent social transmission of adaptive behavior has evolutionary implications. In Drosophila, exposure to parasitoid wasps leads to a sharp decline in oviposition. We show that exposure to predator elicits both an acute and learned oviposition depression, mediated through the visual system. However, long-term persistence of oviposition depression after predator removal requires neuronal signaling functions, a functional mushroom body, and neurally driven apoptosis of oocytes through effector caspases. Strikingly, wasp-exposed flies (teachers) can transmit egg-retention behavior and trigger ovarian apoptosis in naïve, unexposed flies (students). Acquisition and behavioral execution of this socially learned behavior by naïve flies requires all of the factors needed for primary learning. The ability to teach does not require ovarian apoptosis. This work provides new insight into genetic and physiological mechanisms that underlie an ecologically relevant form of learning and mechanisms for its social transmission.

Article and author information

Author details

Balint Z Kacsoh

Department of Genetics, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, Hanover, United States

Competing interests
No competing interests declared.
Julianna Bozler

Department of Genetics, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, Hanover, United States

Competing interests
No competing interests declared.
Mani Ramaswami

Smurfit Institute of Genetics, Department of Zoology, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

Competing interests
Mani Ramaswami, Reviewing editor, eLife.
Giovanni Bosco

Department of Genetics, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, Hanover, United States

For correspondence
giovanni.bosco@dartmouth.edu

Competing interests
No competing interests declared.

Copyright

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.