Adult Drosophila were transferred into three 24 well-plates. Each of the multi-well plates were placed inside a Zantiks MWP unit and data on activity and startle response were automatically recorded live from the unit under varying thermal conditions.
- Unit 1: acted as a control and stayed at a constant 22oC (rearing temperature)
- Unit 2: started at a low temperature (16oC) increased to a high temperature (28oC) and back down
- Unit 3: started at a high temperature (28oC) decreased to a low temperature (16oC) and back up
For this practical we have 30 of these 7 second videos (10 videos per unit) which show the startle response of Drosophila at each temperature change. Animals startled to a 'light off' stimulus of 500ms which is indicated by a red light in the top left corner of the video.
Additionally we have another 30 video recordings which are 30 seconds long of general activity and vertical distribution without any startle stimuli at each temperature change.
Together with these videos we have files with their corresponding data on distance travelled.
example of Adult Drosophila startle response to light stimuli
Potential learning outcomes:
- To gain understanding of how temperature affects animal physiology and behaviour
- To gain understanding of the startle response or startle reflex in animals
- To gain practical experience in measuring animal behaviours from video data
- To gain experience in handling large data sets from automatically generated behavioural data
- To compare and contrast manual versus automatically generated behavioural data and understand the pros and cons of both methods
- To understand how to apply appropriate statistical analysis to a dataset
- To understand potential for human bias by comparing data from blind versus not-blind recording
Here you will find:
Full methodology & supplementary media
Data and videos for startle response
Data and videos for activity
