A Long-Term Drosophila Body Mass Measurement System

We propose a novel system for long-term monitoring of Drosophila body mass. In this approach, a cantilever beam is placed inside a Drosophila culture vial and undergoes random vibrations induced by Drosophila landings. An infrared camera connected to a microcomputer records these vibrations. Image processing techniques then extract the beams vibration signals from the video recordings. Applying the Euler-Bernoulli beam theory, we calculate the Drosophila body mass. As a demonstration, we used this system to measure body mass variations in wild-type Drosophila over 14 days. Summary statementThis study presents a system that enables long-term monitoring of fruit fly body mass, offering new opportunities to study relationships between genes, circadian rhythms, phenotype, and long-term mass variation.