Sub-strains of Drosophila Canton-S differ markedly in their locomotor behavior

We collected five sub-strains of the standard laboratory wild-type Drosophila melanogaster Canton Special (CS) and analyzed their walking behavior in Buridan's paradigm using the CeTrAn software. According to twelve different aspects of their behavior, the sub-strains fit into three groups. The group separation appeared not to be correlated with the origin of the stocks. We conclude that founder effects but not laboratory selection likely influenced the gene pool of the sub-strains. The flies’ stripe fixation was the parameter that varied most. Our results suggest that differences in the genome of laboratory stocks can render comparisons between nominally identical wild-type stocks meaningless. A single source for control strains may settle this problem.