![]() Many advances in understanding the genetics of sexually dimorphic behaviors have come from the study of Drosophila melanogaster fly courtship, where a male fly orients toward, taps, and follows a female fly, extending a wing to produce a courtship song before tasting, mounting, and copulating with her ( Hall, 1994). Which genes control sexual dimorphism in specialist species that have evolved novel behaviors? Do conserved genes control sexual dimorphism in species-specific behaviors, or do novel genes evolve to control new behaviors? Although an astonishing diversity of sexually dimorphic behaviors exists across species, most insights into the genetic and neural basis of sex-specific behaviors have come from a limited set of model organisms ( Matthews and Vosshall, 2020). Female Serromyia femorata midges pierce and suck conspecific males dry during mating, breaking off his genitalia inside her, thereby supplying the female with both nutrition and sperm ( Edwards, 1920). Male Paradisaeidae birds-of-paradise perform an elaborate courtship dance to seduce prospective female partners, contorting their bodies in forms resembling flowers, ballerinas, and smiling faces ( Scholes, 2008). IntroductionĪcross animals, males and females of the same species show striking differences in behavior. More research is required to fully understand the effects of the fruitless gene in male and female mosquitoes. speculate, likely gained this role controlling mosquito feeding behavior in the course of evolution. These results reveal that fruitless, a gene that controls sex-specific mating behaviors in other insects, controls a sex-specific feeding behavior in mosquitoes. Unlike unmodified males, however, the male mosquitoes lacking fruitless were attracted to the body odor of a person’s arm (like females). The genetically altered male mosquitoes became unable to mate successfully, but – similar to unmodified males – still preferred sugar water over blood when feeding. removed the fruitless gene from Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. Yet it remains to be seen whether the fruitless gene has any effect in mosquitoes, where sex differences relate to feeding habits. For example, a gene called fruitless controls courtship behaviors in male flies and silkworms, and is thought to be the ‘master regulator’ of male sexual behavior across insects. In other insects, some of the genes that control mating behaviors that depend on sex have been identified. Unfortunately, the genes that control mosquito feeding behaviors have not been well studied. Determining which genes are linked to feeding behaviors in mosquitoes could allow researchers to genetically engineer females so they no longer bite people, thus stopping the spread of these diseases. Therefore, female mosquitoes are the ones responsible for transmitting the viruses that cause certain blood-borne diseases such as dengue fever or Zika. Mosquitoes are an example: while female mosquitoes feed on humans, and are attracted to a person’s body heat and odor, male mosquitoes have little interest in biting humans for their blood. However, there are a few species where behavioral differences between the sexes are not connected to mating. Most examples of sexual dimorphism, such as elaborate visual displays or courtship behaviors, are linked to mating. The bushy mane of a male lion, for example, is nowhere to be seen on a female lioness, and only male peacocks have extravagant tails. Sexual dimorphism is a phenomenon among animals, insects and plants where the two sexes of a species show differences in body size, physical features or colors. Our results highlight an unexpected repurposing of a master regulator of male-specific sexual behavior to control one module of female-specific blood-feeding behavior in a deadly vector of infectious diseases. Remarkably, fruitless males also gain strong attraction to a live human host, a behavior that wild-type males never display, suggesting that male mosquitoes possess the central or peripheral neural circuits required to host-seek and that removing fruitless reveals this latent behavior in males. ![]() We generated fruitless mutant mosquitoes and showed that males failed to mate, confirming the ancestral function of this gene in male sexual behavior. The fruitless gene is sex-specifically spliced and encodes a BTB zinc-finger transcription factor proposed to be a master regulator of male courtship and mating behavior across insects. Only females are attracted to and obtain a blood-meal from humans, which they use to stimulate egg production. The Aedes aegypti mosquito shows extreme sexual dimorphism in feeding. ![]()
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