Evidence map›Paper›PMID 12391295›Full record

ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2002

Experimental evolution of learning ability in fruit flies.

Frederic Mery, Tadeusz J Kawecki

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2002. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 64 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
64citing papers in PubMed, 1 pooled it
1.9field-weighted citation impact, top 14% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

64 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 259 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Pooled it
  2. Linking individual fitness to the evolution of cognition.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025
    Review
  3. What could evolve in the evolution of memory?Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025
    Article
  4. Article
  5. Multiple methods for assessing learning and memory inbioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025
    Article
  6. Article
  7. Rethinking Norm Psychology.Perspectives on psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science · 2024
    Article
  8. Royal Society open science · 2023
    Article
  9. Article
  10. Review
  11. Article
  12. Review
  13. Review
  14. Article
  15. Article
  16. Life in fluctuating environments.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2020
    Review
  17. Experimental evolutionary simulations of learning, memory and life history.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2020
    Article
  18. Article
  19. Article
  20. Article

4 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.

Frederic MeryUnit for Ecology and Evolution, Department of Biology, University of Fribourg, Chemin du Musée 10, CH-1700 Fribourg, Switzerland. frederic@mery@unifr.ch
Tadeusz J Kawecki
University of Fribourg · CH

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

The presence of genetic variation for learning ability in animals opens the way for experiments asking how and under what ecological circumstances improved learning ability should evolve. Here we report experimental evolution of learning ability in Drosophila melanogaster. We exposed experimental populations for 51 generations to conditions that we expected to favor associative learning with regard to oviposition substrate choice. Flies that learned to associate a chemical cue (quinine) with a particular substrate, and still avoided this substrate several hours after the cue had been removed, were expected to contribute more alleles to the next generation. From about generation 15 on, the experimental populations showed marked ability to avoid oviposition substrates that several hours earlier had contained the chemical cue. The improved response to conditioning was also expressed when the flies were faced with a choice of novel media. We demonstrate that these behavioral changes are caused by the evolution of both a higher learning rate and a better memory.

Indexed as

Avoidance LearningBehavior, AnimalBiological EvolutionAnimalsDrosophila melanogasterOvipositionQuinineQuinine

Identifiers

PMID12391295
PMCPMC137874
OpenAlexW2078699226

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.