Abstract
Aggressive behavior is a complex social behavior that is difficult to measure. Here, we describe a simple method for the quantitative analysis of aggression in male Drosophila melanogaster. Traditional measurements of aggressive behavior have relied on a territorial context with a food territory and a female as factors that induce or enhance aggression. The protocol described here is devoid of a food territory or a female, making it simpler than most existing methods used to measure aggressive behavior. Multiple pairs of males are tested simultaneously to obtain an average fighting score. Four parameters are used to quantify the behavior: frequency, index, latency and intensity of fighting based on unambiguous offensive fighting behaviors. The assay takes 15 min, during which time a frequency score is obtained for 20–35 pairs simultaneously. More in-depth analysis, including latency, index and intensity, can be performed on the videotaped record of the experiment. The assay is highly reproducible and requires limited resources in a simple setup.
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Acknowledgements
I thank Ralph Greenspan for critically reading the manuscript and for useful comments and David Edelman for taking photographs. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0432063 (R.J. Greenspan and H.A.D.) and by the Neurosciences Research Foundation.
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Supplementary Video 1
Repeated orientation of the attacking male prior to the first attack. (MOV 391 kb)
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Dierick, H. A method for quantifying aggression in male Drosophila melanogaster. Nat Protoc 2, 2712–2718 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nprot.2007.404
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nprot.2007.404
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