Lihoreau Mathieu, Clarke Ireni M, Buhl Camille, Sumpter David J T, Simpson Stephen J
Charles Perkins Centre, The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales 2006, Australia
Charles Perkins Centre, The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales 2006, Australia.
J Exp Biol. 2016 Mar;219(Pt 5):668-75. doi: 10.1242/jeb.127431. Epub 2016 Jan 8.
The fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster has emerged as a model organism for research on social interactions. Although recent studies have described how individuals interact on foods for nutrition and reproduction, the complex dynamics by which groups initially develop and disperse have received little attention. Here we investigated the dynamics of collective foraging decisions by D. melanogaster and their variation with group size and composition. Groups of adults and larvae facing a choice between two identical, nutritionally balanced food patches distributed themselves asymmetrically, thereby exploiting one patch more than the other. The speed of the collective decisions increased with group size, as a result of flies joining foods faster. However, smaller groups exhibited more pronounced distribution asymmetries than larger ones. Using computer simulations, we show how these non-linear phenomena can emerge from social attraction towards occupied food patches, whose effects add up or compete depending on group size. Our results open new opportunities for exploring complex dynamics of nutrient selection in simple and genetically tractable groups.
果蝇已成为研究社会互动的模式生物。尽管最近的研究描述了个体如何在食物上互动以获取营养和进行繁殖，但群体最初形成和分散的复杂动态却很少受到关注。在这里，我们研究了果蝇集体觅食决策的动态及其随群体大小和组成的变化。成年果蝇和幼虫群体在两个相同、营养均衡的食物斑块之间做出选择时，会不对称地分布，从而更多地利用其中一个斑块。由于果蝇更快地加入食物，集体决策的速度随着群体大小的增加而提高。然而，较小的群体比较大的群体表现出更明显的分布不对称性。通过计算机模拟，我们展示了这些非线性现象是如何从对已被占据的食物斑块的社会吸引力中产生的，其影响根据群体大小相加或竞争。我们的结果为探索简单且基因易于操作的群体中营养选择的复杂动态提供了新机会。
