My abstract draft:
Will they learn to court?
Studying the role of Or47b in drosophila courtship learning behavior
Behaviors are made up of both innate and plastic components and courtship is no exception. It has been discovered that courtship can be learned in drosophila melanogaster (fruit flies), given that the innate component is absent. However, we do not know the exact mechanism that enables this learning. In this study, we are focusing on the olfactory system because we hypothesize that olfaction is important in learning; more specifically that Or47b is a key olfactory receptor neuron that regulates the learning of courtship behavior. To do this, we are using fru mutant fruit flies and fru and Or47b double mutant fruit flies and group housing them with other males or females for a few days and then observing their courtship behavior. We are currently waiting for results, however if our hypothesis is correct, we expect the double mutant fruit flies to not court even after group housing them. These results could better our understanding of the mechanisms driving behavior changes in general.
