Figure 4: Silencing apterous brain neurons affects the modulation of female walking speed during courtship likely as a result of reduced receptivity.
From: apterous Brain Neurons Control Receptivity to Male Courtship in Drosophila Melanogaster Females
(a) Courtship bouts in the first five minutes of video of virgin control and virgin with silenced brain apterous neurons. Each line is one video. The black rectangle indicates copulation. (b) Female velocity during courtship periods (‘courtship’) and outside of courtship periods (‘non-courtship’). During courtship: *p < 0.05, Mann-Whitney U test. During non-courtship: n.s., not significant, unpaired t test. (c) Normalized changes in female velocity before copulation. To quantify the association between velocity and time to copulation we calculated rank correlations. Spearman’s rank correlation: Control females, 20 videos, 30 frames bin, p < 0.0001; apterous-silenced females that copulated, 15 videos, 30 frame bin, p < 0.0001. (d) Schematic of the small arena where the experiments were performed. Fly velocity and quantification of mating. n values shown in parentheses. n.s., not significant, *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ****p < 0.0001 unpaired t test for the fly speed in the small arena, Mann-Whitney U test for speed comparison across arenas and Fisher’s exact test for mating.
