Female access and diet affect insemination success, senescence, and the cost of reproduction in male Mexican fruit flies .

Hypotheses exploring the influence of dietary conditions on the life history trade-off between survival and reproductive success are extensively tested in female insects, but are rarely explored in males. Here, the impact of dietary quality and female access on age-specific reproduction and survival of male Mexican fruit flies, Loew (Diptera: Tephritidae), are examined. There is a clear cost of female access for males with access to dietary protein, measurable as a decrease in life expectancy, which is further influenced by the age when females are introduced.

Recording lifetime behavior and movement in an invertebrate model.

Characterization of lifetime behavioral changes is essential for understanding aging and aging-related diseases. However, such studies are scarce partly due to the lack of efficient tools. Here we describe and provide proof of concept for a stereo vision system that classifies and sequentially records at an extremely fine scale six different behaviors (resting, micro-movement, walking, flying, feeding and drinking) and the within-cage (3D) location of individual tephritid fruit flies by time-of-day throughout their lives.