COURTSHIP INDROSOPHILA

▪ Abstract Courtship is a complex behavior in Drosophila that recruits a wide range of genes for its realization, including those concerning sex determination, ion channels, and circadian rhythms. Results from different experimental approaches—behavioral and genetic comparisons between species, analysis of mutants and mosaics, and identification of specific sensory stimuli—sketch the outlines of a set of pleiotropic genes acting on a distributed system in the brain to produce the species-specific sequence of responses and actions.