Nature Communications (Mar 2023)

Aggregation pheromones have a non-linear effect on oviposition behavior in Drosophila melanogaster

  • Thomas A. Verschut,
  • Renny Ng,
  • Nicolas P. Doubovetzky,
  • Guillaume Le Calvez,
  • Jan L. Sneep,
  • Adriaan J. Minnaard,
  • Chih-Ying Su,
  • Mikael A. Carlsson,
  • Bregje Wertheim,
  • Jean-Christophe Billeter

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-37046-2
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 14, no. 1
pp. 1 – 15

Abstract

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Drosophila larvae may benefit each other at lower densities but compete at higher densities. Here, Verschut et al. identify a mechanism enabling Drosophila females to favor egg-laying sites containing medium concentrations of aggregation pheromones, which may facilitate choice of favorable sites.