Food, “Culture,” and Sociality in Drosophila

vored media (without quinine). In the critical test phase, demonstrators and observers were exposed separately to the two flavored media. Social transmission occurred if the oviposition choices of observers mirrored that of demonstrators. Using this methodology, Battesti et al. (2012) first showed that observer flies relied heavily on social information and acquired oviposition preferences from demonstrators, even if they had the opportunity to sample the two equally suitable media during the transmission phase, thus confirming previous observations in this species (Sarin and Dukas, 2009). The authors next investigated the mechanisms of social transmission and showed that social learning did not occur when observers were exposed to social cues only (freshly laid eggs and aggregation pheromone) on one of the two media. Social transmission, however, always occurred when observers interacted directly with demonstrators, even if the media were unflavored. Although the precise mechanism of social learning remains an open Food, “culture,” and sociality in Drosophila