To clearly assess the behavior of each partner, we measured the courtship index (CI) directed or received by individual mutant plets1 males when paired with single wild-type males.
To distinguish among these possibilities, we quantified the courtship behavior of mutant and control males when placed with mutant or control male targets.
When mutant males were used as targets, the CI that they received from wild-type males varied according to their treatment: plets1 males raised at 31°C on standard food induced a high CI (Fig. 1B; Movie S1), but when raised at 25°C on standard food, they induced no courtship.
In fact, the impact of ΔMst35B on male fertility was only revealed when mutant males were allowed to mate with a large excess of virgin females (1 for 10; Figure 3F) but not with a 1 1 sex ratio (not shown).
miR-124 mutant males showed reduced mating success when paired with female flies, and elicited courtship by normal males.
However, as seen below, the life span increases in p53 mutant males were not consistently observed when crosses were done in the opposite direction, and therefore may not be biologically significant.
Seminal vesicles of 5 days old tbrd-1 mutant males were devoid of sperm also when males were kept isolated from females.
Adult mutant females had significantly reduced egg production, and produced no viable offspring when mated to homozygous mutant males.
Mutant males experience a statistically significant lifespan extension when aged at 28 °C, a condition of chronic heat stress (Fig. 3a; P < 0.0001, Fig. S4A).
