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. 2011 Nov 1;6(11):e26811. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0026811

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This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Public Domain declaration, which stipulates that, once placed in the public domain, this work may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose.

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A. The first phase of male mating behavior involves a systematic search for the hermaphrodite vulva. This search requires apposition of the male tail (open triangle) against the hermaphrodite surface and is powered by backwards locomotion. Apposition behavior can be divided into three sub-behaviors: contact response, scanning and turning. Contact response requires both A- and B-neuron function, while scanning and turning are principally controlled by the A-neurons [28]. B–C. Quantification of mate apposition behavior in wild type (WT), dmd-3 and mab-23 null mutants. Each dot corresponds to the performance of a single male in a 15-minute mating assay (see Materials and Methods). The X-axis shows the genotype or treatment. “- 6As” corresponds to males lacking A-neurons in rays 1–6 due to their specific ablation with a laser micro-beam. The A-neurons affected by mab-23 mutants are the same as those eliminated in the “- 6As” males. “-As, -Bs” corresponds to males lacking both A- and B-neurons in all rays due to their laser ablation [28]. The low sample size for mutant males or ray-neuron-ablated males in B and C is because fewer males in these categories progress as far as scanning or turning. Results of Nonparametric 1-way ANOVA (Kruskal-Wallis) are shown. Median, grey bars. Significance *** p<0.001; ** p<0.01; * p<0.05.