Evaluating Evasion Strategies in Zebrafish Larvae

Abstract

An effective evasion strategy allows prey to survive encounters with predators. Prey are generally thought to escape in a direction that is either random or serves to maximize the minimum distance from the predator. Here we introduce a comprehensive approach to determine the most likely evasion strategy among multiple hypotheses and the role of biomechanical constraints on the escape response of prey fish. Through a consideration of six strategies with sensorimotor noise and previous kinematic measurements, our analysis shows that zebrafish larvae generally escape in a direction orthogonal to the predator's heading. By sensing only the predator's heading, this orthogonal strategy maximizes the distance from fast-moving predators, and, when operating within the biomechanical constraints of the escape response, it provides the best predictions of prey behavior among all alternatives. This work demonstrates a framework for resolving the strategic basis of evastion in predator-prey interactions, which could be applied to a broad diversity of animals.

Interpretable and Generalizable Strategies for Stably Following Hydrodynamic Trails

“…This problem falls under the broader context of locally sensing a signal field and inferring unknown information about the field and its source [25,26,[40][41][42][43], including steering the sensor to locate the source [18,32,[44][45][46][47] or other target points [19,48]. When the signal field is transported by laminar and diffusive processes, gradient based methods perform admirably in locating the source [47,49,50] and identifying optimal sensor placements [27,43,51].…”