title: Looking under the lamp post: neither fruitless nor doublesex has evolved to generate divergent male courtship in Drosophila.
abstract: How do evolved genetic changes alter the nervous system to produce different patterns of behavior? We address this question using Drosophila male courtship behavior, which is innate, stereotyped, and evolves rapidly between species. D. melanogaster male courtship requires the male-specific isoforms of two transcription factors, fruitless and doublesex. These genes underlie genetic switches between female and male behaviors, making them excellent candidate genes for courtship behavior evolution. We tested their role in courtship evolution by transferring the entire locus for each gene from divergent species to D. melanogaster. We found that despite differences in Fru+ and Dsx+ cell numbers in wild-type species, cross-species transgenes rescued D. melanogaster courtship behavior and no species-specific behaviors were conferred. Therefore, fru and dsx are not a significant source of evolutionary variation in courtship behavior.
authors.affiliation: Aix-Marseille Université, CNRS, Institut de Biologie du Développement de Marseille, UMR 7288, 13288 Marseille cedex 9, France; Janelia Farm Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, 19700 Helix Drive, Ashburn, VA 20147, USA.
authors.forename: Jessica
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Cande
authors.affiliation: Janelia Farm Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, 19700 Helix Drive, Ashburn, VA 20147, USA.
authors.forename: David L
authors.initials: DL
authors.lastname: Stern
authors.affiliation: Janelia Farm Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, 19700 Helix Drive, Ashburn, VA 20147, USA.
authors.forename: Tomoko
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Morita
authors.affiliation: Aix-Marseille Université, CNRS, Institut de Biologie du Développement de Marseille, UMR 7288, 13288 Marseille cedex 9, France. Electronic address: benjamin.prudhomme@univ-amu.fr.
authors.forename: Benjamin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Prud'homme
authors.affiliation: Aix-Marseille Université, CNRS, Institut de Biologie du Développement de Marseille, UMR 7288, 13288 Marseille cedex 9, France; Ludwig Maximilians Universität München, Fakultät für Biologie, Biozentrum, Großhaderner Strasse 2, 82152 Planegg-Martinsried, Germany. Electronic address: gompel@biologie.uni-muenchen.de.
authors.forename: Nicolas
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Gompel
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002678:Chimera; D003380:Courtship; D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D029721:Drosophila Proteins / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D004331:Drosophila melanogaster / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism / Q000502:physiology*; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D008297:Male; D009419:Nerve Tissue Proteins / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D014157:Transcription Factors / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D004268:DNA-Binding Proteins; C070369:DSX protein, Drosophila; D029721:Drosophila Proteins; D009419:Nerve Tissue Proteins; D014157:Transcription Factors; C103226:fru protein, Drosophila