PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Jasper C. Simon
AU  - Ulrike Heberlein
TI  - Social hierarchy is established and maintained with distinct acts of aggression in male <em>Drosophila</em>
AID  - 10.1101/2020.05.12.091553
DP  - 2020 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2020.05.12.091553
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/05/14/2020.05.12.091553.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/05/14/2020.05.12.091553.full
AB  - Social interactions pivot on an animal’s experiences, internal states, and feedback from others. This complexity drives the need for precise descriptions of behavior to dissect the fine detail of its genetic and neural circuit bases. In laboratory contests, Drosophila males reliably exhibit aggression, conventionally scored using lunges as a proxy, allowing its study with the many available genetic tools. Here, we use an explicit approach to identify the onset and reversals in hierarchical relationships and observe that distinct aggressive acts precede, concur, and follow dominance. We find that lunges are inadequate in establishing social dominance. Lunges rather appear to reflect the dominant state of a male and help in maintaining his social status. Lastly, we characterize the recurring structure of aggression that emerges through subsequent reversals in dominance. Collectively, this work provides a framework for studying the complexity of agonistic interactions in flies enabling its neurogenetic basis to be understood with precision.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.