WIKIMEDIA COMMONS, FIR0002/FLAGSTAFFOTOS
A first-of-its-kind experiment tracking fruit fly behavior in a natural setting challenges 40 years of assumptions about circadian clocks.
The research, published today (April 4) in Nature, suggests that much of scientists’ current understanding about Drosophila circadian behavioral rhythms may actually be wrong. It also emphasizes the importance of studying organisms in natural environments.
“It’s always been a mystery as to how flies really behave in the wild,” said Paul Hardin, director of the Center for Biological Clocks Research at Texas A&M University, who was not involved in the study. “This study is really novel. It comes closer than any other paper in revealing the activity pattern of single flies in nature.”
“This is the first paper for flies suggesting that if you study the ...
