Manuscript version accepted by the publisher.Some years ago Prof. Marco and his team discovered
that Drosophila show noticeably different behaviour as
well as accelerated aging in Space (1-4). It was also
proven that by simulating these conditions on Earth, it
was possible to replicate these phenomena (2,5,6). In
order to demonstrate how closely connected the
enhanced motility and the accelerated aging are, five
Drosophila strains have been selected, each behaving
differentially under altered gravity conditions. Three of
these strains have been selected some years ago and reselected
over the last six months according to their
gravitropic response in a vertically-oriented ten-exit
maze for 25 generations. The behaviour of flies at 1g
resembles an exaggerated escape response to gravity, a
neutral behaviour to gravity and a negative (attractive)
behaviour to gravity, respectively. The other two strains
have been selected over several decades according to
the longevity of their parents to experimentally produce
a short and a long-life strain. The five selected strains
are scored against a gravitropic index, median survival
and median motility in 1g conditions to evaluate their
usability as microgravity research tools. Preliminary
experiments have been performed at ESTEC/DESC
altered gravity facilities (hypergravity and simulated
microgravity). The establishment of these strains will
provide science with an exciting new tool in Space
Biology and their future utilization on space missions or
long term stays in the International Space Station is
promising
