Abstract
During a study ofDrosophila mating behavior we observed unexpected changes in performance under ostensibly identical experimental conditions. We related the behavior during the 17 days of the experiment to changes in ambient humidity and barometric pressure. Humidity had no significant effect, but reduced barometric pressure was found to be associated with reduced mating activity (R 2=0.29,P<0.025), accounting for close to 30% of the variation in total number of matings.
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References
Grossfield, J. (1978). Non-sexual behavior ofDrosophila. In Ashburner, M., and Wright, T. R. F. (eds.),The Genetics and Biology of Drosophila,Vol. 2b, Academic Press, London.
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This research was supported by NIH Grant GM30638-02 to Therese Markow.
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Ankney, P.F. A note on barometric pressure and behavior inDrosophila pseudoobscura . Behav Genet 14, 315–317 (1984). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01065549
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01065549