The survival advantage of olfaction in a competitive environment

Olfaction is generally assumed to be critical for survival because this sense allows animals to detect food and pheromonal cues. Although the ability to sense sex pheromones [1-3] is likely to be important for insects, the contribution of general odor detection to survival is unknown. We investigated the extent to which the olfactory system confers a survival advantage on Drosophila larvae foraging for food under conditions of limited resources and competition from other larvae.