Fig. 5: Serotonin signaling mediates the decrease in network robustness in response to nutrient choice.

a, b Randomly removing nodes in the networks does not increase average shortest distance in neither heads (a) nor bodies (b). Dots and error bars indicate the mean and standard deviation from 1000 simulations, respectively. c–f Sequential removals following node centrality (estimated from node degree (c, d) or node eigenvector (e, f)) increase the average shortest distance (\(\bar{d}\)) of correlation networks in both heads and bodies. Importantly, such increases are more significant in the heads of control flies that fed on a choice diet, suggesting this network is more vulnerable than other ones. Key metabolites that lead to the differences are highlighted in circles.