Cut-out Drosophila

A few weeks back, I had the opportunity to speak to my son's JK class on what behavioural geneticists do. It was tons of fun. We tested hypotheses regarding phototaxis, gravitaxis and food preferences, and discussed the life cycle of Drosophila melanogaster. One of the things I brought with me to enhance the experience were some fruit-fly cut-outs for them to decorate and take home. If you are interested, why not make one yourself? Use brass fasteners to attach the wings.

Another new face!

Emily Martin joined our lab in September. She is pursuing her MSc in Integrative Biology. Her research focuses on the causes and consequences of conspecific mate preferences.

Our older video setup

To illustrate the difference between our new camera set-up and our old one, here are some pictures from this summer.

Here, Suzanne & Shipra start the process up by placing females into the test chambers...

Each chamber is individually labelled, and consists of 4 small sub-chambers that can be loaded with food and males, and a larger chamber in which a female is free to sample these males (who are kept behind a fine  mesh)

 The chambers were mounted on a cork-board

 And filmed on with a camera set to take time-lapse videos....

New video taping set-up

To better film female associations, we are experimenting with a variety of different camera rigs. In this configuration, the camera is mounted vertically above the chambers, which are lit from below. A diffusion filter mounted on the underside of the platform ensure even lighting. The main lights in the room are kept dark to reduce potential glare in the camera lens. These videos will then be analyzed using VideoFly software, kindly provided to us by Scott Pletcher.

New Faces in the lab!

The 2013-2014 academic year has now begun! This year we have two new BI499 Honours Thesis students: Leah DeJong (left) and Ashley Guncay (Right), who will be exploring new facets of the adaptive nature of female choice. Leah is investigating whether genetic variation in female choosiness is associated with direct and or indirect fitness, while Ashley is examining the relationship between attractiveness and offspring immunocompetence.

First MSc thesis defended in the Long Lab!

Congratulations to Shawn on the receipt of his MSc! It was a busy year -but it proved to be very rewarding and exciting. With this degree under his belt, Shawn has now moved on to medical school in Limerick.

CSZ Conference

Hannah Tennant (MSc Candidate) and Erin Sonser (Undergrad Thesis Student) with their unique "comic-strip" poster at the Canadian Society of Zoologists (CSZ) Conference, 2013 at the University of Guelph.