Stellar performance: mechanisms underlying Milky Way orientation in dung beetles

Foster, James J.; Jundi, Basil el; Smolka, Jochen; Khaldy, Lana; Nilsson, David; Byrne, Marcus J.; Dacke, Marie

doi:10.1098/rstb.2016.0079

Cited by 34 publications

(45 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…Many insects in addition possess simple eyes ( ocelli ) on the dorsal surface of the head that are often also sensitive to polarized light [12–15], but their contribution to path integration behavior is unclear. Similarly, compass information derived from other global cues such as the position of the Sun [16], the Moon [17] spectral and intensity cues [18,19], magnetic cues [20–22], and the Milky Way [23,24], are also used for insect navigation, yet whether they contribute to path integration is still unclear.…”

Section: Path Integration Behaviormentioning

confidence: 99%

Principles of Insect Path Integration

2018

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Continuously monitoring its position in space relative to a goal is one of the most essential tasks for an animal that moves through its environment. Species as diverse as rats, bees, and crabs achieve this by integrating all changes of direction with the distance covered during their foraging trips, a process called path integration. They generate an estimate of their current position relative to a starting point, enabling a straight-line return, following what is known as a home vector. While in theory path integration always leads the animal precisely back home, in the real world noise limits the usefulness of this strategy when operating in isolation. Noise results from stochastic processes in the nervous system and from unreliable sensory information, particularly when obtaining heading estimates. Path integration, during which angular self-motion provides the sole input for encoding heading (idiothetic path integration), results in accumulating errors that render this strategy useless over long distances. In contrast, when using an external compass this limitation is avoided (allothetic path integration). Many navigating insects indeed rely on external compass cues for estimating body orientation, whereas they obtain distance information by integration of steps or optic-flow-based speed signals. In the insect brain, a region called the central complex plays a key role for path integration. Not only does the central complex house a ring-attractor network that encodes head directions, neurons responding to optic flow also converge with this circuit. A neural substrate for integrating direction and distance into a memorized home vector has therefore been proposed in the central complex. We discuss how behavioral data and the theoretical framework of path integration can be aligned with these neural data.

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Section: Path Integration Behaviormentioning

confidence: 99%

Principles of Insect Path Integration

2018

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“…Moore et al ., ; Bachleitner et al ., ), and night‐time orientation and navigation (which often involves the use of stars and other celestial objects; e.g. Foster et al ., ). Some free‐living organisms are able to detect and respond to extraordinarily low levels of night‐time light (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Skyglow extends into the world's Key Biodiversity Areas

Garrett

Donald

Gaston

2019

Animal Conservation

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The proportion of the Earth's surface that experiences a naturally dark environment at night is rapidly declining with the introduction of artificial light. Biological impacts of this change have been documented from genes to ecosystems, and for a wide diversity of environments and organisms. The likely severity of these impacts depends heavily on the relationship between the distribution of artificial night‐time lighting and biodiversity. Here, we carry out a global assessment of the overlap between areas of conservation priority and the most recent atlas of artificial skyglow. We show that of the world's Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs), less than a third have completely pristine night‐time skies, about a half lie entirely under artificially bright skies and only about a fifth contain no area in which night‐time skies are not polluted to the zenith. The extent of light pollution of KBAs varies by region, affecting the greatest proportion of KBAs in Europe and the Middle East. Statistical modelling revealed associations between light pollution within KBAs and associated levels of both gross domestic product and human population density. This suggests that these patterns will worsen with continued economic development and growth in the human population.

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“…[369,374] Crickets have developed a prominent dorsal area, recognizable by smooth facet lenses and ommatidia that are devoid of screening pigment that feature exclusively blue-sensitive photoreceptors. [379] African dung beetles [380,381] and bees [382,383] navigate using the polarization pattern created by of the sun, the moon or the milky way on cloudless nights. [2] …”

Section: Navigation With Polarizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

It's Not a Bug, It's a Feature: Functional Materials in Insects

2018

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Over the course of their wildly successful proliferation across the earth, the insects as a taxon have evolved enviable adaptations to their diverse habitats, which include adhesives, locomotor systems, hydrophobic surfaces, and sensors and actuators that transduce mechanical, acoustic, optical, thermal, and chemical signals. Insect‐inspired designs currently appear in a range of contexts, including antireflective coatings, optical displays, and computing algorithms. However, as over one million distinct and highly specialized species of insects have colonized nearly all habitable regions on the planet, they still provide a largely untapped pool of unique problem‐solving strategies. With the intent of providing materials scientists and engineers with a muse for the next generation of bioinspired materials, here, a selection of some of the most spectacular adaptations that insects have evolved is assembled and organized by function. The insects presented display dazzling optical properties as a result of natural photonic crystals, precise hierarchical patterns that span length scales from nanometers to millimeters, and formidable defense mechanisms that deploy an arsenal of chemical weaponry. Successful mimicry of these adaptations may facilitate technological solutions to as wide a range of problems as they solve in the insects that originated them.

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Stellar performance: mechanisms underlying Milky Way orientation in dung beetles

Cited by 34 publications

References 32 publications

Principles of Insect Path Integration

Principles of Insect Path Integration

Skyglow extends into the world's Key Biodiversity Areas

It's Not a Bug, It's a Feature: Functional Materials in Insects

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