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Gender-Selective Patterns Of Aggressive Behavior In Drosophila Melanogaster, Steven P. Nilsen, Yick-Bun Chan, Robert Huber, Edward A. Kravitz

Robert Huber

Complex behaviors, such as aggression, are comprised of distinct stereospecific behavioral patterns (modules). How such patterns get wired into nervous systems remains unknown. Recently, we reported on a quantitative analysis of fighting behavior in male flies of the common Canton-S strain of Drosophila melanogaster. Here, we report a similar analysis of fighting behavior in females of the same species. Fights were carried out between pairs of virgin and pairs of mated females in competition for a yeast resource. Each fight was videotaped and analyzed by using transition matrices and Markov chain analyses. We observe only small difference in fighting intensity …