Tuesday, February 11th
Can termites inform us on general group conflict?
Liz Clifton
University of New Hampshire
My PhD began as a Masters project testing models of human warfare in tropical termites. I evaluated Lanchester’s Laws, which focus on group size and group fighting ability to determine the winner of a battle, by creating conflict between termite groups of various sizes and abilities. From that work, I expanded my studies to include an assessment of the evolution of defense in termites, from the architecture of their nests to the physical forms of “weapons” in termite soldiers. In this talk, I will share my fascination with termite “warfare” and how it may relate to the larger ideas of phenological and behavioral evolution.
Tuesday, January 14th
Visual assisted guidance reveals novel fly-object interactions
Sasha Rayshubskiy
Animals carefully evaluate the physical properties of objects in their environment. In this study, we use opto-motor-based visual guidance to repeatedly direct the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, to interact with a small spherical object (a ball). We demonstrate that flies engage with the object through a limited set of behavioral motifs, some of which result in ball movement: the fly can walk onto and off the object, jump away while mounted on it, perform a “ball walk” – walking on the ball causing it to move – or pull the ball, also causing movement. We show that flies can detect whether the ball is moving and alter their behavior toward the ball depending on its mobility. When interacting with a mobile ball, flies consistently jump off throughout their interactions. In contrast, with an immobile ball, flies initially jump off but then show a marked decrease in jumping and an increase in mounting behaviors, suggesting a shift from initial caution to treating the ball as an integrated part of their environment. We also demonstrate that the flies’ ability to perform a ball-walking behavior that induces ball movement increases with time spent interacting with the ball, potentially reflecting a learned motor skill. Finally, we present results from a genetic silencing screen, showing that neurons previously implicated in social behaviors affect fly-ball interactions, suggesting common neural pathways between these behaviors.
