Sense of smell controls fruit fly fertility

Sense of smell controls fruit fly fertilitySome smells are simply delicious.It's worth following your nose to find out what treat is in store, and fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) love nothing more than following their sense of smell to some appetising fruit.A delicious smell also tells the insects that they are likely to be well fed, providing them with the energy that is essential to produce eggs and reproduce.But could this sense tie in with the insect's fertility, allowing insects that pick up good smells to produce large numbers of eggs, while less pleasant odours that warn of hardship impair the insect's fertility?Curious to find out how much of a role a fruit fly's sense of smell may play in its fertility, Madhumala Sadanandappa and Giovanni Bosco from the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, USA, investigated fruit flies with no sense of smell.