Ethology, or animal behavior, is the study of how animals interact with each other and their environment(s).
Taxis and kinesis are both directional behaviors. Taxis is stimulus-induced movement towards a specific direction. Conversely, kinesis is stimulus-induced movement in random directions.
Taxis behaviors are named after the type of triggering stimuli and the direction of movement. For example, both food and bug spray are chemical stimuli. Movement towards food is positive chemotaxis, whereas movement away from the bug spray is negative chemotaxis.
A choice chamber is a device with two sides that allows detection of response to a stimulus by presenting the stimulus in one side and counting the number of flies in both sides at certain time points.
Fruit flies have a short life cycle and a simple genome. This allows generation and breeding of large numbers of mutant flies fairly quickly. Moreover, fruit flies are maintained easily and are extremely cost-efficient.