Date of Award

5-2015

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

College/School

College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Department/Program

Psychology

Thesis Sponsor/Dissertation Chair/Project Chair

Julian Keenan

Committee Member

Jennifer Pardo

Committee Member

Peter Vietze

Abstract

Evidence shows that Drosophila melongaster take into account the environmental factors such as substance, temperature, texture, and direct threats in order to provide protection for their offspring; young drosophila utilize experienced drosophila's olfactory cues for informed site selection. Their site selection is indicative of what drosophila view as beneficial. Since they have near-field hearing, drosophila may integrate sound into their deciding factors. If drosophila utilize sound as a deciding factor then a tone within their hearing range and similar to the tone their wings produce during flight such as a 250 Hz tone could have positive or negative associations. In order to assess their tone preference and to confirm previous findings 120 female drosophila were collected. Their preferences were measured by counting the amount of eggs laid and categorizing the areas they were laid into zones of On, Near, and Off relative to tone location. There were two independent variables with three levels each. The first independent variable was tone presence; either the 250 Hz tone was present on one side of the forced choice chamber, present on both sides, or there was no tone. The second independent variable was substrate. The substrate consisted of sucrose a food source, caffeine a bitter avoided substance, or agar a neutral solution. They laid significantly more eggs under the tone when agar was underneath whereas they laid at random in the no tone control group. When given the option to lay their eggs under tone or on sucrose they chose tone at a significant rate over sucrose. This study demonstrates that young female drosophila may positively associate 250 Hz tone, and place more value on social feedback than their own assessment of resources.

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