Regulation of Feeding Behavior in Adult Drosophila Melanogaster Varies With Feeding Regime and Nutritional State

Abstract

The regulation of feeding behavior in adult Drosophila melanogaster includes such elements as ingestion responsiveness, volume ingested in a single meal, food storage in the crop and rate of defecation. Our results suggest that feeding behavior varies in a manner dependent on feeding regime (food-deprived or ad-libitum-fed) and nutritional state. Fed flies that are subsequently food-deprived become increasingly more responsive to food stimuli over time and, when offered 1% agar diets containing different concentrations of sucrose, ingest greater amounts of diets that have higher sucrose concentrations. When fed ad libitum for 72 h on these same diets, D. melanogaster maintained much smaller crops on average than food-deprived flies fed a single meal. Additionally, ad-libitum-fed flies are grouped into two categories depending on the concentration of sucrose in the diet. Flies fed for 72 h on 1% agar diets having 50 mmol l−1 sucrose or more are not affected by the concentration of sucrose in the diet, while flies fed on diets of 15 or 25 mmol l−1 sucrose increase ingestion responsiveness, crop size and the rate of defecation with decreasing concentrations of sucrose in the diet. Flies fed on even lower sucrose concentrations (5 or 10 mmol l−1 sucrose) for 27–72 h exhibit both a shift over time to larger crop sizes and increased mortality over those of flies fed 15 mmol l−1 sucrose. These data suggest that flies fed ad libitum are capable of modulating their feeding behavior in response to their nutritional state.