Emergence of social cluster by collective pairwise encounters in Drosophila

Many animals exhibit an astonishing ability to form groups of large numbers of individuals. The dynamic properties of such groups have been the subject of intensive investigation. The actual grouping processes and underlying neural mechanisms, however, remain elusive. Here, we established a social c...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:eLife 2020-01, Vol.9
Main Authors: Jiang, Lifen, Cheng, Yaxin, Gao, Shan, Zhong, Yincheng, Ma, Chengrui, Wang, Tianyu, Zhu, Yan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
collective behaviour
Drosophila
emergent structure
Fruit flies (Tephritidae)
mechanosensation
Neurons
Neuroscience
pairwise interactions
social cluster
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Summary:Many animals exhibit an astonishing ability to form groups of large numbers of individuals. The dynamic properties of such groups have been the subject of intensive investigation. The actual grouping processes and underlying neural mechanisms, however, remain elusive. Here, we established a social clustering paradigm in to investigate the principles governing social group formation. Fruit flies spontaneously assembled into a stable cluster mimicking a distributed network. Social clustering was exhibited as a highly dynamic process including all individuals, which participated in stochastic pair-wise encounters mediated by appendage touches. Depriving sensory inputs resulted in abnormal encounter responses and a high failure rate of cluster formation. Furthermore, the social distance of the emergent network was regulated by -specific neurons, which were activated by contact-dependent social grouping. Taken together, these findings revealed the development of an orderly social structure from initially unorganised individuals via collective actions.
ISSN:2050-084X
2050-084X
DOI:10.7554/elife.51921