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Characterizing long-range search behavior in Diptera using complex 3D virtual environments

The exemplary search capabilities of flying insects have established them as one of the most diverse taxa on Earth. However, we still lack the fundamental ability to quantify, represent, and predict trajectories under natural contexts to understand search and its applications. For example, flying in...

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Autores principales: Kaushik, Pavan Kumar, Renz, Marian, Olsson, Shannon B.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: National Academy of Sciences 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7275712/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32424090
http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1912124117
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author Kaushik, Pavan Kumar
Renz, Marian
Olsson, Shannon B.
author_facet Kaushik, Pavan Kumar
Renz, Marian
Olsson, Shannon B.
author_sort Kaushik, Pavan Kumar
collection PubMed
description The exemplary search capabilities of flying insects have established them as one of the most diverse taxa on Earth. However, we still lack the fundamental ability to quantify, represent, and predict trajectories under natural contexts to understand search and its applications. For example, flying insects have evolved in complex multimodal three-dimensional (3D) environments, but we do not yet understand which features of the natural world are used to locate distant objects. Here, we independently and dynamically manipulate 3D objects, airflow fields, and odor plumes in virtual reality over large spatial and temporal scales. We demonstrate that flies make use of features such as foreground segmentation, perspective, motion parallax, and integration of multiple modalities to navigate to objects in a complex 3D landscape while in flight. We first show that tethered flying insects of multiple species navigate to virtual 3D objects. Using the apple fly Rhagoletis pomonella, we then measure their reactive distance to objects and show that these flies use perspective and local parallax cues to distinguish and navigate to virtual objects of different sizes and distances. We also show that apple flies can orient in the absence of optic flow by using only directional airflow cues, and require simultaneous odor and directional airflow input for plume following to a host volatile blend. The elucidation of these features unlocks the opportunity to quantify parameters underlying insect behavior such as reactive space, optimal foraging, and dispersal, as well as develop strategies for pest management, pollination, robotics, and search algorithms.
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spelling pubmed-72757122020-06-11 Characterizing long-range search behavior in Diptera using complex 3D virtual environments Kaushik, Pavan Kumar Renz, Marian Olsson, Shannon B. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A Biological Sciences The exemplary search capabilities of flying insects have established them as one of the most diverse taxa on Earth. However, we still lack the fundamental ability to quantify, represent, and predict trajectories under natural contexts to understand search and its applications. For example, flying insects have evolved in complex multimodal three-dimensional (3D) environments, but we do not yet understand which features of the natural world are used to locate distant objects. Here, we independently and dynamically manipulate 3D objects, airflow fields, and odor plumes in virtual reality over large spatial and temporal scales. We demonstrate that flies make use of features such as foreground segmentation, perspective, motion parallax, and integration of multiple modalities to navigate to objects in a complex 3D landscape while in flight. We first show that tethered flying insects of multiple species navigate to virtual 3D objects. Using the apple fly Rhagoletis pomonella, we then measure their reactive distance to objects and show that these flies use perspective and local parallax cues to distinguish and navigate to virtual objects of different sizes and distances. We also show that apple flies can orient in the absence of optic flow by using only directional airflow cues, and require simultaneous odor and directional airflow input for plume following to a host volatile blend. The elucidation of these features unlocks the opportunity to quantify parameters underlying insect behavior such as reactive space, optimal foraging, and dispersal, as well as develop strategies for pest management, pollination, robotics, and search algorithms. National Academy of Sciences 2020-06-02 2020-05-18 /pmc/articles/PMC7275712/ /pubmed/32424090 http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1912124117 Text en Copyright © 2020 the Author(s). Published by PNAS. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/This open access article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Biological Sciences
Kaushik, Pavan Kumar
Renz, Marian
Olsson, Shannon B.
Characterizing long-range search behavior in Diptera using complex 3D virtual environments
title Characterizing long-range search behavior in Diptera using complex 3D virtual environments
title_full Characterizing long-range search behavior in Diptera using complex 3D virtual environments
title_fullStr Characterizing long-range search behavior in Diptera using complex 3D virtual environments
title_full_unstemmed Characterizing long-range search behavior in Diptera using complex 3D virtual environments
title_short Characterizing long-range search behavior in Diptera using complex 3D virtual environments
title_sort characterizing long-range search behavior in diptera using complex 3d virtual environments
topic Biological Sciences
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7275712/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32424090
http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1912124117
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