丁香园AV

Department of Biological Sciences

The Canadian Council of University Biology Chairs (CCUBC) has offered the 2018 CCUBC Undergraduate Paper Award to Yonathan Uriel (Gries-lab) for his Insect Science  paper titled "The fly factor phenomenon is mediated by inter鈥恔ingdom signalling between bacterial symbionts and their blow fly hosts".

Essentially, the study explains why a few flies feeding on "your" food rapidly recruit many more flies. These feeding flies deposit with their feces and regurgitate microbial symbionts which then metabolize the food. In the process, they produce foul-smelling odorants (e.g., indole) typically associated with fresh animal droppings. So, these flies or their microbes make your food smell like feces which of course is gourmetprotein food for flies.

Next time you observe flies feeding on your food...... you can fully enjoy the underlying biological phenomenon. 

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