In common with humans, animals markedly change their behaviour in response to the current environment and social situation. A team from UEA School of Biological Sciences led by Prof. Tracey Chapman and Dr Amanda Bretman have been examining these responses in the fruitfly model system. Previously, the BIO team showed that if male fruitflies are kept together with rivals before mating, they subsequently mate for longer and father more offspring. Hence mere exposure of males to rivals can trigger both external behavioural and internal physiological changes, which together enable males to compete more effectively with their rivals. In a new paper published in Current Biology, the BIO team has now identified the different senses that males use to detect their rivals. This revealed that males use a system of multiple, but interchangeable, cues: any two cues from the three of hearing, smell or touch must be perceived by males in order to respond to rivals. This complex system of cues provides a robust, foolproof method of detecting rivals, so that males only respond to rivals when necessary and do not waste time and effort when they are not likely to face competition. The study shows how the subtle detection of signals from the social environment can have profound effects on an animal's physiology, with far reaching consequences for their overall fertility. It is thought that this information could inform changes to animal husbandry so as to increase male fertility, and could be important in rearing regimes used for the control of pest insects and disease vectors.

Citation

Bretman et al., Males Use Multiple, Redundant Cues to Detect Mating Rivals, Current Biology (2011), doi:10.1016/j.cub.2011.03.008