Byars Anabel S X, Riddle Nicole C
Department of Biology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294, USA.
Biol Open. 2025 Jul 15;14(7). doi: 10.1242/bio.062071. Epub 2025 Jul 22.
Animals exhibit natural movement patterns that are important for their survival and reproduction. Human disturbance can alter these movement patterns. In many natural settings, assessing the long-term impact of these altered movement patterns is difficult. Laboratory studies with model organisms may provide additional insight into the long-term effects of altered movement behaviors, such as those caused by human disturbance. Here, we investigate how unpredictable disturbance impacts animal activity and lifespan of Drosophila melanogaster. We selected four strains from the Drosophila Genetics Reference Panel (DGRP) to assess animals with different baseline activity levels. The unpredictable disturbance treatment was simulated using the TreadWheel to administer four randomized 30-min disturbances daily. We found that both 5-day and 20-day disturbance treatments altered activity levels, but the response was dependent on sex, genotype, and age of the animals. While we detected altered animal activity in several groups, lifespan generally was not affected, with a few exceptions. Our results highlight the complexity involved in predicting individual responses to disturbance but suggest that long-term effects on lifespan are rare in response to short-term disturbance.
动物表现出对其生存和繁殖至关重要的自然运动模式。人类干扰会改变这些运动模式。在许多自然环境中，评估这些改变后的运动模式的长期影响是困难的。对模式生物进行的实验室研究可能会为诸如由人类干扰引起的运动行为改变的长期影响提供更多见解。在此，我们研究不可预测的干扰如何影响黑腹果蝇的活动和寿命。我们从果蝇遗传参考面板（DGRP）中选择了四个品系，以评估具有不同基线活动水平的动物。使用跑步机模拟不可预测的干扰处理，每天进行四次随机的30分钟干扰。我们发现，5天和20天的干扰处理均改变了活动水平，但反应取决于动物的性别、基因型和年龄。虽然我们在几个组中检测到动物活动发生了改变，但寿命通常不受影响，只有少数例外。我们的结果突出了预测个体对干扰反应所涉及的复杂性，但表明对寿命的长期影响在短期干扰的情况下很少见。
