Dynamics of Social Behavior in Fruit Fly Larvae
Figure 3
(A) Larvae exhibited greater aggregation behavior on harder substrates than on standard or soft substrates (N = 12 each), and (B) aggregated more at sites where the surface had been broken with an artificial “trench” (see methods, N = 7) than sites that had no trenches (N = 6) or a trench in all quadrats (N = 7). Note that even when food was uniformly soft or trenched at every quadrat, larvae still showed significant aggregation. Additionally, (C) when we manipulated the number of larvae per dish, larvae in larger groups started burrowing sooner than larvae in smaller groups (N = 6).