scholarly journals Visual and movement memories steer foraging bumblebees along habitual routes

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olivier J.N. Bertrand ◽  
Charlotte Doussot ◽  
Tim Siesenop ◽  
Sridhar Ravi ◽  
Martin Egelhaaf
Keyword(s):  
Flight Control ◽  
Optic Flow ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Path Integration ◽  
Bombus Terrestris ◽  
Flight Tunnel ◽  
Experimental Paradigm ◽  
Insect Navigation ◽  
Animal Navigation ◽  
Observed Behaviour

One persistent question in animal navigation is how animals follow habitual routes between their home and a food source. Our current understanding of insect navigation suggests an interplay between visual memories, collision avoidance and path integration, the continuous integration of distance and direction travelled. However, these behavioural modules have to be continuously updated with instantaneous visual information. In order to alleviate this need, the insect could learn and replicate habitual movements (“movement memories”) around objects (e.g. a bent trajectory around an object) to reach its destination. We investigated whether bumblebees, Bombus terrestris, learn and use movement memories en route to their home. Using a novel experimental paradigm, we habituated bumblebees to establish a habitual route in a flight tunnel containing “invisible” obstacles. We then confronted them with conflicting cues leading to different choice directions depending on whether they rely on movement or visual memories. The results suggest that they use movement memories to navigate, but also rely on visual memories to solve conflicting situations. We investigated whether the observed behaviour was due to other guidance systems, such as path integration or optic flow-based flight control, and found that neither of these systems was sufficient to explain the behaviour.

scholarly journals Nocturnal insects use optic flow for flight control

2011 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 499-501 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Baird ◽  
Eva Kreiss ◽  
William Wcislo ◽  
Eric Warrant ◽  
Marie Dacke
Keyword(s):  
Flight Control ◽  
Optic Flow ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Visual Cues ◽  
Bombus Terrestris ◽  
Flight Tunnel ◽  
Cluttered Environments ◽  
Flying Insects ◽  
Dim Light ◽  
Control Flight

To avoid collisions when navigating through cluttered environments, flying insects must control their flight so that their sensory systems have time to detect obstacles and avoid them. To do this, day-active insects rely primarily on the pattern of apparent motion generated on the retina during flight (optic flow). However, many flying insects are active at night, when obtaining reliable visual information for flight control presents much more of a challenge. To assess whether nocturnal flying insects also rely on optic flow cues to control flight in dim light, we recorded flights of the nocturnal neotropical sweat bee, Megalopta genalis , flying along an experimental tunnel when: (i) the visual texture on each wall generated strong horizontal (front-to-back) optic flow cues, (ii) the texture on only one wall generated these cues, and (iii) horizontal optic flow cues were removed from both walls. We find that Megalopta increase their groundspeed when horizontal motion cues in the tunnel are reduced (conditions (ii) and (iii)). However, differences in the amount of horizontal optic flow on each wall of the tunnel (condition (ii)) do not affect the centred position of the bee within the flight tunnel. To better understand the behavioural response of Megalopta , we repeated the experiments on day-active bumble-bees ( Bombus terrestris ). Overall, our findings demonstrate that despite the limitations imposed by dim light, Megalopta —like their day-active relatives—rely heavily on vision to control flight, but that they use visual cues in a different manner from diurnal insects.

scholarly journals Distance Estimation in Reproduction Tasks in a Harbor Seal (Phoca vitulina)

Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 938
Author(s):  
Eric Maaß ◽  
Frederike D. Hanke
Keyword(s):  
Visual Information ◽  
Path Integration ◽  
Visual Cues ◽  
Distance Estimation ◽  
Harbor Seal ◽  
Phoca Vitulina ◽  
Harbor Seals ◽  
Experimental Paradigm ◽  
Feeding Grounds ◽  
Specific Distance

Harbor seals commute between haul-out places and feeding grounds close to the shore or in the open ocean, which is considered a low structured environment, at first sight not providing many cues for orientation/navigation. Nevertheless, seals are well-oriented. For returning to a specific location, seals may use both external and internal cues to, for example, perform path integration requiring the integration of distances traveled and angles steered. We herein assessed the seal’s ability to estimate distances, previously swum or unknown, in reproduction tasks. Reproduction tasks refer to an experimental paradigm in which the experimental animal is required to swim a specific distance first and subsequently reproduce this distance, with visual cues present or absent. The seal was able to estimate and then reproduce distances (0.5–18.5 m) with the smallest error below 10% of the actual distance, and its precision was higher with distances repeatedly swum compared to its performance with unfamiliar distances. In the absence of visual cues, the seal’s performance slightly dropped; however, it was still able to perform the task with an error of 21%. In conclusion, distance estimation may help seals to navigate precisely towards their goals, even if, for example, visual information is not available.

scholarly journals Spatial tuning of translational optic flow responses in hawkmoths of varying body size

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Grittner ◽  
Emily Baird ◽  
Anna Stöckl
Keyword(s):  
Body Size ◽  
Flight Control ◽  
Optic Flow ◽  
Visual Cues ◽  
Flight Tunnel ◽  
Compound Eyes ◽  
Eye Size ◽  
Spatial Frequencies ◽  
Macroglossum Stellatarum ◽  
Control Response

AbstractTo safely navigate their environment, flying insects rely on visual cues, such as optic flow. Which cues insects can extract from their environment depends closely on the spatial and temporal response properties of their visual system. These in turn can vary between individuals that differ in body size. How optic flow-based flight control depends on the spatial structure of visual cues, and how this relationship scales with body size, has previously been investigated in insects with apposition compound eyes. Here, we characterised the visual flight control response limits and their relationship to body size in an insect with superposition compound eyes: the hummingbird hawkmoth Macroglossum stellatarum. We used the hawkmoths’ centring response in a flight tunnel as a readout for their reception of translational optic flow stimuli of different spatial frequencies. We show that their responses cut off at different spatial frequencies when translational optic flow was presented on either one, or both tunnel walls. Combined with differences in flight speed, this suggests that their flight control was primarily limited by their temporal rather than spatial resolution. We also observed strong individual differences in flight performance, but no correlation between the spatial response cutoffs and body or eye size.

scholarly journals Optimal multiguidance integration in insect navigation

2018 ◽  
Vol 115 (11) ◽  
pp. 2824-2829 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thierry Hoinville ◽  
Rüdiger Wehner
Keyword(s):  
Path Integration ◽  
Cognitive Map ◽  
Model Organisms ◽  
Terrestrial Environment ◽  
Insect Navigation ◽  
Desert Ants ◽  
Local Vector ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Global Vector ◽  
Global And Local

In the last decades, desert ants have become model organisms for the study of insect navigation. In finding their way, they use two major navigational routines: path integration using a celestial compass and landmark guidance based on sets of panoramic views of the terrestrial environment. It has been claimed that this information would enable the insect to acquire and use a centralized cognitive map of its foraging terrain. Here, we present a decentralized architecture, in which the concurrently operating path integration and landmark guidance routines contribute optimally to the directions to be steered, with “optimal” meaning maximizing the certainty (reliability) of the combined information. At any one time during its journey, the animal computes a path integration (global) vector and landmark guidance (local) vector, in which the length of each vector is proportional to the certainty of the individual estimates. Hence, these vectors represent the limited knowledge that the navigator has at any one place about the direction of the goal. The sum of the global and local vectors indicates the navigator’s optimal directional estimate. Wherever applied, this decentralized model architecture is sufficient to simulate the results of quite a number of diverse cue-conflict experiments, which have recently been performed in various behavioral contexts by different authors in both desert ants and honeybees. They include even those experiments that have deliberately been designed by former authors to strengthen the evidence for a metric cognitive map in bees.

scholarly journals Control of self-motion in dynamic fluids: fish do it differently from bees

2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 20140279 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Scholtyssek ◽  
Marie Dacke ◽  
Ronald Kröger ◽  
Emily Baird
Keyword(s):  
Motion Control ◽  
Danio Rerio ◽  
Optic Flow ◽  
Bombus Terrestris ◽  
Physical Contact ◽  
Black And White ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Control Flight ◽  
And Control ◽  
Self Motion

To detect and avoid collisions, animals need to perceive and control the distance and the speed with which they are moving relative to obstacles. This is especially challenging for swimming and flying animals that must control movement in a dynamic fluid without reference from physical contact to the ground. Flying animals primarily rely on optic flow to control flight speed and distance to obstacles. Here, we investigate whether swimming animals use similar strategies for self-motion control to flying animals by directly comparing the trajectories of zebrafish ( Danio rerio ) and bumblebees ( Bombus terrestris ) moving through the same experimental tunnel. While moving through the tunnel, black and white patterns produced (i) strong horizontal optic flow cues on both walls, (ii) weak horizontal optic flow cues on both walls and (iii) strong optic flow cues on one wall and weak optic flow cues on the other. We find that the mean speed of zebrafish does not depend on the amount of optic flow perceived from the walls. We further show that zebrafish, unlike bumblebees, move closer to the wall that provides the strongest visual feedback. This unexpected preference for strong optic flow cues may reflect an adaptation for self-motion control in water or in environments where visibility is limited.

scholarly journals Flight control of fruit flies: dynamic response to optic flow and headwind

2017 ◽  
Vol 220 (11) ◽  
pp. 2005-2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kiaran K. K. Lawson ◽  
Mandyam V. Srinivasan
Keyword(s):  
Dynamic Response ◽  
Flight Control ◽  
Optic Flow ◽  
Fruit Flies

scholarly journals Both visual and idiothetic cues contribute to head direction cell stability during navigation along complex routes

2011 ◽  
Vol 105 (6) ◽  
pp. 2989-3001 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan M. Yoder ◽  
Benjamin J. Clark ◽  
Joel E. Brown ◽  
Mignon V. Lamia ◽  
Stephane Valerio ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Visual Information ◽  
Path Integration ◽  
Visual Cues ◽  
Cell Activity ◽  
Neural Representation ◽  
Head Direction ◽  
Motion Cues ◽  
Cell Stability ◽  
Self Motion ◽  
The Relationship

Successful navigation requires a constantly updated neural representation of directional heading, which is conveyed by head direction (HD) cells. The HD signal is predominantly controlled by visual landmarks, but when familiar landmarks are unavailable, self-motion cues are able to control the HD signal via path integration. Previous studies of the relationship between HD cell activity and path integration have been limited to two or more arenas located in the same room, a drawback for interpretation because the same visual cues may have been perceptible across arenas. To address this issue, we tested the relationship between HD cell activity and path integration by recording HD cells while rats navigated within a 14-unit T-maze and in a multiroom maze that consisted of unique arenas that were located in different rooms but connected by a passageway. In the 14-unit T-maze, the HD signal remained relatively stable between the start and goal boxes, with the preferred firing directions usually shifting <45° during maze traversal. In the multiroom maze in light, the preferred firing directions also remained relatively constant between rooms, but with greater variability than in the 14-unit maze. In darkness, HD cell preferred firing directions showed marginally more variability between rooms than in the lighted condition. Overall, the results indicate that self-motion cues are capable of maintaining the HD cell signal in the absence of familiar visual cues, although there are limits to its accuracy. In addition, visual information, even when unfamiliar, can increase the precision of directional perception.

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