Accurate quantification of food intake and feeding behaviors are essential for understanding various biological processes, such as metabolism and aging. Currently, no methods allow for the concurrent measurement of both parameters for the same individual flies. Here, we couple Con-Ex ( Con sumption- Ex cretion) and FLIC ( F ly L iquid-Food I nteraction C ounter), previously developed to measure food consumption and various feeding behaviors, respectively, into a single platform that we named Con-FLIC. Using starvation as a known condition that changes food intake and feeding behaviors, we validate that Con-FLIC enables concurrent measurement of feeding behaviors and food intake in Drosophila at a single-fly resolution. We expect that Con-FLIC will be an easy non-invasive option to quantify food consumption and feeding behaviors concurrently in the same individual flies.
Copyright: © 2024 by the authors.
The research reported in this manuscript was partially supported by the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health under award number R15AG074538, granted to DH.