Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease that eventually leads to a loss of basic human brain function. The disease manifests itself through the destruction of nerve cells. The amyloid beta fragment (Aβ42) that results from the cleavage of the amyloid precursor protein (APP), forms plaques in the brain which causes cell death. The fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster has a protein APP-like (APPL) that shares a high degree of conservation to human APP. Therefore, we plan to use powerful genetic tools and tractable neuroanatomy available in Drosophila to study human APP and its homolog APPL. We will test APPL mutants, as well as flies expressing transgenes of different variants of APPL and human APP. A flight behavioral assay will be used to analyze the effects of the expression of the different transgenes in flies that are 2 days (2d), 10 days (10d), and 30 days old (30d). To test the flies, a drop test will be conducted which consists of dropping flies in a graduated cylinder and recording their landing distance. The measured flight performance will be a reading of the function of the motor network including identified flight motoneurons. The observations that will be recorded will help provide better understanding of the function of APP and APPL.

It’s well established that breeding and foraging behaviors depend on individual decisions, but little is known about how decisions are connected across contexts. To improve conservation efforts of wild species and critical habitat, it’s essential to understand how animal decisions of foraging and breeding are linked. The current research focuses on breeding behavior in the Greater sage-grouse, a lekking bird that feeds exclusively on chemically-defended sagebrush during the breeding season. Male sage-grouse display for several hours each morning on a lek (display ground) during the breeding season and forage on toxic sagebrush in the afternoons. We will be connecting the individual decisions on and off-lek and how they influence off-lek foraging behavior to the on-lek breeding behavior, which are essential to male survival and reproductive success that incur high physiological costs. Using videos taken on leks during the breeding season, I will quantify male breeding behavior by recording successful copulations, aggression display rates, and male-male aggressive interactions. This breeding behavior data will be paired with chemical foraging data collected from GPS-tagged males. Linking foraging and breeding behaviors in sage-grouse will allow researchers and managers to understand how habitat quality affects reproductive success and, more broadly, population processes in other herbivores.