Fig. 2: Ozone exposure disrupts D. melanogaster (CS)’s sex discrimination.

a Male/female courtship latency and mating latency after male exposure to different levels of ozone (sample size provided in brackets, Dunnett’s test for multiple comparisons against the ambient air control; groups significantly differing from control: *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001). b Male/male courtship behavior after both males had been exposed to ozone. Courtship latency, Dunnett’s test for multiple comparisons; courtship percentage (percentage of experiments that resulted in courting males), Fisher’s exact test with Holm-Bonferroni correction for multiple comparison with control group; significant differences to control depicted as above. c SSR dose response curve of Or67d neuron (at1 sensillum) from male D. melanogaster. Top panel, schematic of SSR procedure; data presented as mean ± SE, N = 10 for either air or ozone exposure (t-test for each concentration; NS indicates no significant difference). Mineral oil (MO) served as the solvent control. d Courtship behavior of an intact D. melanogaster male towards a decapitated male. Either the intact, the decapitated or both males were exposed to ozone before the courtship assay. Courtship percentage (see above), Fisher’s exact test with Holm-Bonferroni correction for multiple comparison; courtship index (amount of time the intact male courted during the experiment), Tukey’s test for multiple comparisons. e A male fly’s preference for a decapitated male or female. Either the decapitated male, the female or both decapitated flies were exposed to ozone before the courtship assay. First choice presented in pie charts (Fisher’s exact test); Preference index (time courting female – time courting male) / total courting time, unpaired t-test for courtship preference. All tests are two-tailed. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.