果蝇求偶研究阐明了复杂行为的神经遗传组织的几种原理。通过跨感官模式的整合,男性表现出刻板的追逐模式,求爱歌曲制作和交配尝试。在这里,我们报告了一个偶然的发现,即强光不仅增强了对女性目标的求爱,而且还引发了雄性苍蝇中意想不到的求爱行为。引人注目的是,在野生型男性专用房间里,我们观察到极端的行为表现,例如\'链接\'和\'轮转\',类似于先前报道的无结果突变体和异位小白过表达的转化体的雄性-雄性求爱行为。在各种视觉系统突变体中,这种雄性-雄性求爱大大减少,包括中断的光转导(norpA),消除眼睛颜色筛选颜料(白色),或删除R7感光细胞(7个)。然而,光诱导的求爱在翅膀切割的苍蝇中没有受到阻碍,尽管他们无法制作求爱歌曲,求爱时的主要声音信号。出乎意料的是,嗅觉突变体orco和sbl表现出无拘无束的雄性-雄性求爱。特别是,orco雄性在昏暗或强光条件下都能获得最大的求偶分数。一起,我们的观察结果支持这样的观点,即先天的男性求爱行为在正常情况下受到嗅觉线索的约束,但在果蝇中可以通过强烈的视觉刺激来释放。
Drosophila courtship studies have elucidated several principles of the neurogenetic organization of complex behaviour. Through an integration across sensory modalities, males perform stereotypic patterns of chasing, courtship song production and copulation attempts. Here we report a serendipitous finding that intense light not only enhances courtship toward female targets but also triggers unexpected courtship behaviours among male flies. Strikingly, in wild-type male-only chambers, we observed extreme behavioural manifestations, such as \'chaining\' and \'wheeling\', resembling previously reported male-male courtship behaviours in fruitless mutants and in transformants with ectopic mini-white+ overexpression. This male-male courtship was greatly diminished in a variety of visual system mutants, including disrupted phototransduction (norpA), eliminated eye-colour screening pigments (white), or deletion of the R7 photoreceptor cells (sevenless). However, light-induced courtship was unhampered in wing-cut flies, despite their inability to produce courtship song, a major acoustic signal during courtship. Unexpectedly the olfactory mutants orco and sbl displayed unrestrained male-male courtship. Particularly, orco males attained maximum courtship scores under either dim or intense light conditions. Together, our observations support the notion that the innate male courtship behaviour is restrained by olfactory cues under normal conditions but can be unleashed by strong visual stimulation in Drosophila.