Preface

Since the days of Morgan's Columbia University fly room, Drosophila melanogaster has become one of the premier organisms of choice for genetic investigation of complex biological systems. The modern explosion of research using Drosophila as a model was driven in part by the success of genetic screens aimed at dissecting mechanisms of developmental biology. It is often stated, incorrectly, that Drosophila behavior genetics followed in the footsteps of the achievements of the now famous developmental screens. But in fact, the earliest genetic screens for mutations that impacted development and behavior were pursued in parallel. Indeed, the major publications by Ed Lewis, Nüsslein-Volhard, Eric Weischaus, and colleagues reporting mutations that impacted the major body axes appeared in the late 1970s and early 1980s. And it was around the same time that Seymour Benzer decided to pursue forward mutagenesis to uncover mutations that impacted simple behaviors in Drosophila (prompting his mother to ask: “From this you can make a living?”). The first published reports of mutations that impacted behaviors such as phototaxis, geotaxis, circadian rhythms, and memory began to trickle out in the late 1960s. For sure, most of the early behavior genetic screens were not done to saturation, as was the case with developmental phenotypes. But these early attempts to genetically dissect development and behavior by identifying single gene mutations broke with established approaches and provided a paradigm shift on how we think about the mechanisms underlying complex phenotypes. In fact, it was not at all clear at the time that mutations in individual genes would fracture the biology in ways that were informative (this was a matter of disagreement between Seymour Benzer and Jerry Hirsch).