Idiothetic Path Integration in the Fruit Fly Drosophila melanogaster
| Autor: | Irene S. Kim, Michael H. Dickinson |
|---|---|
| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Rok vydání: | 2017 |
| Předmět: |
0301 basic medicine
Foraging Olfactory cues General Biochemistry Genetics and Molecular Biology 03 medical and health sciences 0302 clinical medicine Specialization (functional) Path integration Animals Drosophila Local search (constraint satisfaction) Communication biology business.industry Ecology fungi Feeding Behavior Olfactory Perception biology.organism_classification Drosophila melanogaster 030104 developmental biology Food Exploratory Behavior Visual Perception Idiothetic Cues General Agricultural and Biological Sciences business 030217 neurology & neurosurgery |
| Popis: | After discovering a small drop of food, hungry flies exhibit a peculiar behavior in which they repeatedly stray from, but then return to, the newly discovered resource. To study this behavior in more detail, we tracked hungry Drosophila as they explored a large arena, focusing on the question of how flies remain near the food. To determine whether flies use external stimuli, we individually eliminated visual, olfactory, and pheromonal cues. In all cases, flies still exhibited a centralized search behavior, suggesting that none of these cues are absolutely required for navigation back to the food. To simultaneously eliminate visual and olfactory cues associated with the position of the food, we constructed an apparatus in which the food could be rapidly translated from the center of the arena. Flies continued to search around the original location, even after the food was moved to a new position. A random search model based on measured locomotor statistics could not reproduce the centered nature of the animal's trajectory. We conclude that this behavior is best explained by a form of path integration in which the flies use idiothetic cues to search near the location of the food. We argue that the use of path integration to perform a centered local search is not a specialization of Drosophila but rather represents an ancient behavioral mode that is homologous to the more elaborate foraging strategies of central place foragers such as ants. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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