Genes and environments in Drosophila sex

Researchers of Drosophila have investigated a broad range of behaviours from aggression to alcohol preference, territoriality. and foraging. This chapter focuses on a small subset of this huge body of work and primarily discusses genetic and environmental influences on Drosophila sexual behaviours, with more focus on social environmental effects and less on abiotic environments. It briefly introduces some challenges in measuring behaviour and its influences before describing Drosophila courtship. The chapter discusses genetic effects, environmental effects, and interactive effects influencing Drosophila sexual behaviour. A number of studies have now uncovered single genes of large effect that influence courtship and mating in Drosophila. As with many phenotypes, Drosophila mating behaviours are influenced by abiotic factors and at times there are very strong genotype-by-environment (GxE) interactions. Finally, social environments can interact with abiotic environments and with male genotype to influence mating success.