Social behavior in Drosophila larva

They influence each other's behavior, but how important this is and how they process and represent social information in their brain is less well understood. This includes fruit flies and larvae, usually not known as “social insects”.

Using a Drosophila larva assay with reduced stimulation, we found that groups show enhanced dispersal and distance from each other in the absence of food. This social context-dependent modulation overrides responses to other external sensory cues and is shaped by developmental social experience. Leveraging the genetic toolbox available in Drosophila, we find that different sensory modalities are required for social context modulation.