Chemical Cues that Guide Female Reproduction in Drosophila melanogaster

Abstract

Chemicals released into the environment by food, predators and conspecifics play critical roles in Drosophila reproduction. Females and males live in an environment full of smells, whose molecules communicate to them the availability of food, potential mates, competitors or predators. Volatile chemicals derived from fruit, yeast growing on the fruit, and flies already present on the fruit attract Drosophila, concentrating flies at food sites, where they will also mate. Species-specific cuticular hydrocarbons displayed on female Drosophila as they mature are sensed by males and act as pheromones to stimulate mating by conspecific males and inhibit heterospecific mating. The pheromonal profile of a female is also responsive to her nutritional environment, providing an honest signal of her fertility potential. After mating, cuticular and semen hydrocarbons transferred by the male change the female's chemical profile. These molecules make the female less attractive to other males, thus protecting her mate's sperm investment. Females have evolved the capacity to counteract this inhibition by ejecting the semen hydrocarbon (along with the rest of the remaining ejaculate) a few hours after mating. Although this ejection can temporarily restore the female's attractiveness, shortly thereafter another male pheromone, a seminal peptide, decreases the female's propensity to re-mate, thus continuing to protect the male's investment. Females use olfaction and taste sensing to select optimal egg-laying sites, integrating cues for the availability of food for her offspring, and the presence of other flies and of harmful species. We argue that taking into account evolutionary considerations such as sexual conflict, and the ecological conditions in which flies live, is helpful in understanding the role of highly species-specific pheromones and blends thereof, as well as an individual's response to the chemical cues in its environment.

Recent advances in neuropeptide signaling in Drosophila, from genes to physiology and behavior

“…It is likely that neuropeptides and neuropeptide receptors that are expressed in these neuronal circuits regulate some aspect of mating behavior [376,377,[475][476][477]. Drosophila mating and post-mating behaviors, and reproduction have been a subject of intense investigation and this topic has been reviewed in detail recently [3,7,467,[478][479][480][481][482][483][484][485].…”

The Role of miRNAs inDrosophila melanogasterMale Courtship Behavior

“…7-T is one of the compounds that is transferred onto females during copulation and stays on them much longer than most seminally transferred compounds (Yew et al 2009;Everaerts et al 2010). cVA, on the other hand, is now viewed as a regulator of response to other pheromones by increasing or decreasing repulsion that is already there to modulate the intensity of specific social behaviors (Billeter and Levine 2015;Billeter and Wolfner 2018). cVA must be sensed in conjunction with 7-T to influence aggression (Wang et al 2011) and courtship behavior (Laturney and Billeter 2016).…”

A Life-History Perspective On Sexual Selection in a Polygamous Species

“…times. This suggests that the spermatophores of males may contain extra nutrients for the females [61], but also (small amounts of) toxic substances, similar to the accessory gland proteins in Drosophila melangaster [63,64]. These substances may only be toxic after a certain threshold, which in the case of H. virescens appears to be reached with 4 matings.…”