Publicação
Social Modulation of Defensive Behaviors in Drosophila
| Resumo: | "Sociality – or group formation – offers different evolutionary advantages, the most important one being protection. Animals in groups dilute their chances of being captured, they have more time to dedicate to non- defensive behaviors, and they can use cues and signals from group members to detect potential threats more efficiently. As a result of these advantages, many vertebrate and invertebrate prey species form social groups, in which they continuously influence one-another. In an attempt to uncover the behavioral and neural basis of group behavior, we studied Drosophila melanogaster, an organism that is increasingly considered to be a social animal. Drosophila displays social buffering of freezing, the defensive behavior where animals become motionless in order to become invisible to predators. Building on this finding, we discovered that social buffering is even stronger under higher levels of threat.(...)" |
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| Autores principais: | Heinemans, Mirjam |
| Assunto: | f«defensive responses; Looming stimuli conditioned freezing |
| Ano: | 2025 |
| País: | Portugal |
| Tipo de documento: | tese de doutoramento |
| Tipo de acesso: | acesso embargado |
| Instituição associada: | Universidade Nova de Lisboa |
| Idioma: | inglês |
| Origem: | Repositório Institucional da UNL |
| Resumo: | "Sociality – or group formation – offers different evolutionary advantages, the most important one being protection. Animals in groups dilute their chances of being captured, they have more time to dedicate to non- defensive behaviors, and they can use cues and signals from group members to detect potential threats more efficiently. As a result of these advantages, many vertebrate and invertebrate prey species form social groups, in which they continuously influence one-another. In an attempt to uncover the behavioral and neural basis of group behavior, we studied Drosophila melanogaster, an organism that is increasingly considered to be a social animal. Drosophila displays social buffering of freezing, the defensive behavior where animals become motionless in order to become invisible to predators. Building on this finding, we discovered that social buffering is even stronger under higher levels of threat.(...)" |
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