Pheromone-Regulated Anemotaxis in Flying Moths

Kennedy, J. S.; Marsh, David

doi:10.1126/science.184.4140.999

Cited by 336 publications

(272 citation statements)

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“…While the biochemical and physiological bases are less well understood, chemotaxis also plays a crucial role in the navigation of multicellular organisms. The nematode worm C. elegans undergoes chemotaxis in response to a variety of external signals [67] while in insects, the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster navigates up gradients of attractive odours during food location [10] and male moths follow pheromone gradients released by the female during mate location [47].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A user’s guide to PDE models for chemotaxis

2008

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Mathematical modelling of chemotaxis (the movement of biological cells or organisms in response to chemical gradients) has developed into a large and diverse discipline, whose aspects include its mechanistic basis, the modelling of specific systems and the mathematical behaviour of the underlying equations. The Keller-Segel model of chemotaxis (Keller and Segel in J Theor Biol 26:399-415, 1970; 30:225-234, 1971) has provided a cornerstone for much of this work, its success being a consequence of its intuitive simplicity, analytical tractability and capacity to replicate key behaviour of chemotactic populations. One such property, the ability to display "auto-aggregation", has led to its prominence as a mechanism for self-organisation of biological systems. This phenomenon has been shown to lead to finite-time blow-up under certain formulations of the model, and a large body of work has been devoted to determining when blow-up occurs or whether globally existing solutions exist. In this paper, we explore in detail a number of variations of the original Keller-Segel model. We review their formulation from a biological perspective, contrast their patterning properties, summarise key results on their analytical properties and classify their solution form. We conclude with a brief discussion and expand on some of the outstanding issues revealed as a result of this work.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A user’s guide to PDE models for chemotaxis

2008

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“…In studies on other animals, a few common themes have emerged. First, as shown clearly by moths, insects often combine zigzagging through an odour plume while approaching its source and wide 'casting' movements to search for the trail whenever they lose it 8,9 . The zigzagging approach has been observed in several other animals including bees, cockroaches, dogs and humans 5,[10][11][12] .…”

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confidence: 99%

Rats track odour trails accurately using a multi-layered strategy with near-optimal sampling

2012

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Tracking odour trails is a crucial behaviour for many animals, often leading to food, mates or away from danger. It is an excellent example of active sampling, where the animal itself controls how to sense the environment. Here we show that rats can track odour trails accurately with near-optimal sampling. We trained rats to follow odour trails drawn on paper spooled through a treadmill. By recording local field potentials (LFPs) from the olfactory bulb, and sniffing rates, we find that sniffing but not LFPs differ between tracking and non-tracking conditions. Rats can track odours within ~1 cm, and this accuracy is degraded when one nostril is closed. moreover, they show path prediction on encountering a fork, wide 'casting' sweeps on encountering a gap and detection of reappearance of the trail in 1-2 sniffs. We suggest that rats use a multi-layered strategy, and achieve efficient sampling and high accuracy in this complex task.

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“…It is for this reason that this particular behavior observed in the moth is referred to as opto-motor anemotactic behavior (Kennedy & Marsh 1974). Hence, for the moth, vision is as important as olfaction since they cannot orient without visual cues (Kennedy & Marsh 1974;Charlton & Cardé. 1990).…”

Section: Insect Based Flight Controlmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Moreover, vision is also known to be used to control the flight speed and set it to a constant ground speed (Kennedy & Marsh 1974;Kennedy et al 1978). …”

Section: Insect Based Flight Controlmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As a consequence, the evolutionary pressure to detect pheromones has generated specific neural and behavioral adaptations to deal with this specific problem. Nonetheless, the chemical search task is not reduced to a unique olfactory process but is a multi-modal task that includes the integration of complex behavioral strategies with visual, olfactory and wind sensing information (Kennedy & Marsh 1974;Ludlow 1982;Charlton & Cardé. 1990).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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