Drosophila Melanogaster: The Meaning Of Fruit Fly

The meaning of Arthropod is an invertebrate animal that has a segmented body, jointed limbs, and commonly has a chitinous outer shell. This Phylum is specific to insects, spiders, arachnids, crustaceans, and myriapods. Drosophila Melanogaster is a species that comes from Phylum Arthropod. The common name for this species is fruit fly. If you are not sure what a fruit fly is, it is a 3mm long fly that is usually seen around spoiled fruit. Why are fruit flies even significant to biologists? They are actually one of the most valuable organisms to biological researches because they can be used as models for research in genetics and development. Fruit flies are easily stored, cheap, and are very well understood. They are very easy to handle and

The female has the choice in whether or not she is inseminated, considering the females are larger and stronger than the male. The males know when to make because females must give an acceptance signal. The acceptance signal consists of the female slowing down, sticking out her ovipositor, and spreading her wings so mating can occur. Mating is completely up to the female and so far there has been no known incidence of rape occurring between fruit flies. Even if a male attempts to mate with the female, if she chooses not to mate with the make she will reject him by kicking him with her hind legs and moving away quickly. If the female has already mated with a male she is able to extrude her genitals so the male is not able to mate with

Sexual selection in most animal species predicts that males are far less picky with their choice of mates than females. Although males are though to not have much of a preference to females it all depends on the resources given. When males are depleted of resources there was a significant increase in the male fruit flies mating with females that are larger. Larger fruit flies produce more eggs than smaller female fruit flies. The male fruit flies noticed that producing sperm was expensive and that there would be a higher fitness advantage. On the contrary, when no resources where depleted the male fruit flies had no preference in females. Fighting behavior can also be seen by male flies in resource depleted