Vrontou, E., Nilsen, S.P., Demir, E., Kravitz, E.A., Dickson, B.J. (2006). fruitless regulates aggression and dominance in Drosophila.  Nat. Neurosci. 9(12): 1469--1471.

FBrf0195403

Research paper

When competing for resources, two Drosophila melanogaster flies of the same sex fight each other. Males and females fight with distinctly different styles, and males but not females establish dominance relationships. Here we show that sex-specific splicing of the fruitless gene plays a critical role in determining who and how a fly fights, and whether a dominance relationship forms.