Abstract
Organisms depend on visual, auditory, and olfactory cues to signal the presence of danger that could impact survival and reproduction. Drosophila melanogaster emits an olfactory alarm signal, termed the Drosophila stress odorant (dSO), in response to mechanical agitation or electric shock. While it has been shown that conspecifics avoid areas previously occupied by stressed individuals, the contextual underpinnings of the emission of, and response to dSO, have received little attention. Using a binary choice assay, we determined that neither age and sex of emitters, nor the time of the day, affected the emission or avoidance of dSO. However, both sex and mating status affected the response to dSO. We also demonstrated that while D. melanogaster, D. simulans, and D. suzukii, have different dSO profiles, its avoidance was not species-specific. Thus, dSO should not be considered a pheromone but a general alarm signal for Drosophila. However, the response levels to both intra- and inter-specific cues differed between Drosophila species and possible reasons for these differences are discussed.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Natasha Bauer-Maison for her technical contribution, Yanira Jimenez Padilla, and the Sinclair laboratory for providing food for Drosophila suzukii during the experiment. Finally, we thank Justin B. Renaud for his expertise, constructive comments and oversight during dSO volatile analysis.
Funding
Graduate scholarship to RTY, Western Foundation internal grant, and NSERC Discovery Grants 04507–2015 to JNM and 04275–2015 to AFS.
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Data acquisition and analysis were carried out by RTY, EL, ISM, SC, ISM, TM, AFG and MS; Protocols elaborated by TM, AFS and JNM; the first draft was written by RTY, EL and AFS and the final draft edited by RTY, TM, AFS and JNM.
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No approval is required from the Western’s Animal Care Committee or the Provincial and Federal regulatory bodies to study invertebrates. However, we provided appropriate rearing conditions and anesthetized flies using CO2 or cold anaesthesia when manipulating flies for colony maintenance. Stress treatments to produce dSO resulted in no mortality.
Preprint Finally, the behavioural portion of this manuscript can be found on bioRxiv—a preprint server for biology, operated by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory: Yost et al. (2021) Is Drosophila melanogaster Stress Odorant (dSO) really an alarm pheromone? bioRxiv:534719 doi:10.1101/534719.
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Ryley T. Yost, Emerald Liang, Megan P. Stewart, Selwyn Chui, Andrew F. Greco, and Shirley Q. Long these authors were undergraduates at the time of data collection
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Yost, R.T., Liang, E., Stewart, M.P. et al. Drosophila melanogaster Stress Odorant (dSO) Displays the Characteristics of an Interspecific Alarm Cue. J Chem Ecol 47, 719–731 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10886-021-01300-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10886-021-01300-y