volatile drosophila cuticular pheromones are affected by social but not sexual experience挥发性果蝇表皮信息素受到社会的影响但不是性体验.pdfVIP

Volatile Drosophila Cuticular Pheromones Are Affected by Social but Not Sexual Experience Jean-Pierre Farine, Jean-Franc¸ois Ferveur, Claude Everaerts* ˆ ´ ´ Centre des Sciences du Gout et de l’Alimentation, Unite Mixte de Recherche 2572-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Unite Mixte de Recherche1324-Institut ´ National de la Recherche Agronomique, Universite de Bourgogne, Dijon, France Abstract Recognition of conspecifics and mates is based on a variety of sensory cues that are specific to the species, sex and social status of each individual. The courtship and mating activity of Drosophila melanogaster flies is thought to depend on the olfactory perception of a male-specific volatile pheromone, cis-vaccenyl acetate (cVA), and the gustatory perception of cuticular hydrocarbons (CHs), some of which are sexually dimorphic. Using two complementary sampling methods (headspace Solid Phase Micro-Extraction [SPME] and solvent extraction) coupled with GC-MS analysis, we measured the dispersion of pheromonal CHs in the air and on the substrate around the fly. We also followed the variations in CHs that were induced by social and sexual interactions. We found that all CHs present on the fly body were deposited as a thin layer on the substrate, whereas only a few of these molecules were also detected in the air. Moreover, social experience during early adult development and in mature flies strongly affected male volatile CHs but not cVA, whereas sexual interaction only had a moderate influence on dispersed CHs. Our study suggests that, in addition to their role as contact cues, CHs can influence fly behavior at a distance and that vol