Effects of Nutrition on Lifelong Sleep and Activity Patterns in Drosophila melanogaster (Diptera: Drosophilidae)

Abstract

Drosophila melanogaster (Meigen) (Diptera: Drosophilidae) exhibits several welldefined sleep parameters and a sleep:wake rhythm strength cycle that fragments and deteriorates with age. Because many aspects of functional senescence may be linked to the effects of accumulated oxidative damage, and as several lines of experimental evidence indicate that sleep parameters and sleep:wake rhythm strength may be modulated by oxidative stress in D. melanogaster, it has been postulated that sleep fragmentation is driven, at least in part, by accumulated oxidative damage in this By. We investigated the contrasting effects of an enriched dietary regime that is likely to exacerbate processes associated with aging and oxidative damage accumulation, and a dietary restriction regime that has been demonstrated to delay the detectable effects of aging-related damage on lifelong sleep and activity patterns in male and female D. melanogaster. We found that female fiies on a nutrient-rich dietary regime exhibited stronger sleep:wake cycles than females on a dietary restriction regime and that dietary restriction did not seem to alter the initiation of sleep fragmentation in female or male D. melanogaster.

Larval density in the invasive Drosophila suzukii: Immediate and delayed effects on life‐history traits

“…For example, the weight was reduced by up to 63% at high larval density conditions (Miller & Thomas, 1958). In D. melanogaster , larval and adult survival (Lewontin, 1955; Lints, 1963; Sang, 1949; Scheiring et al, 1984), and fecundity (Chiang & Hodson, 1950; Lints & Lints, 1969; Prout & McChesney, 1985) were also reduced when larval density increases. The high values of larval density were also associated with rapid development (Nunney, 1990; Partridge & Fowler, 1992) that may have different consequences on life‐history traits.…”