Tracking and chasing in houseflies (Musca)

Wehrhahn, C; Poggio, Tomaso; Bülthoff, HH

doi:10.1007/bf00335239

Cited by 112 publications

(76 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…These differences can be interpreted as reflecting selection for optimal eye size, which is dependent on the behavioral requirements of the different sexes. In several dipteran species, males aerially chase and catch females for mating and the male-specific 'love spot' is specifically adapted to this task (Land and Collett, 1974;Wehrhahn et al, 1982). In ommatidia found in the male love spot only, facet lenses are larger and an atypical R7 cell is present.…”

Section: Uv Photoreceptors and Sexual Dimorphismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sexual dimorphism in the compound eye of Heliconius erato: a nymphalid butterfly with at least five spectral classes of photoreceptor

McCulloch

Osorio

Briscoe

2016

Journal of Experimental Biology

122

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Most butterfly families expand the number of spectrally distinct photoreceptors in their compound eye by opsin gene duplications together with lateral filter pigments; however, most nymphalid genera have limited diversity, with only three or four spectral types of photoreceptor. Here, we examined the spatial pattern of opsin expression and photoreceptor spectral sensitivities in Heliconius erato, a nymphalid with duplicate ultraviolet opsin genes, UVRh1 and UVRh2. We found that the H. erato compound eye is sexually dimorphic. Females express the two UV opsin proteins in separate photoreceptors, but males do not express UVRh1. Intracellular recordings confirmed that females have three short wavelengthsensitive photoreceptors (λ max =356, ∼390 and 470 nm), while males have two (λ max =390 and ∼470 nm). We also found two long wavelength-sensitive photoreceptors (green, λ max ∼555 nm, and red, λ max ∼600 nm), which express the same LW opsin. The red cell's shifted sensitivity is probably due to perirhabdomal filtering pigments. Sexual dimorphism of the UV-absorbing rhodopsins may reflect the females' need to discriminate conspecifics from co-mimics. Red-green color vision may be used to detect differences in red coloration on Heliconius wings, or for host-plant identification. Among nymphalids so far investigated, only H. erato is known to possess five spectral classes of photoreceptor; sexual dimorphism of the eye via suppression of one class of opsin (here UVRh1 in males) has not -to our knowledge -been reported in any animal.

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Section: Uv Photoreceptors and Sexual Dimorphismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sexual dimorphism in the compound eye of Heliconius erato: a nymphalid butterfly with at least five spectral classes of photoreceptor

McCulloch

Osorio

Briscoe

2016

Journal of Experimental Biology

122

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“…inconsistent with the retinal size threshold, because they will extend their legs in response to sinusoidal gratings expanding within a grating mask of fixed size (Borst and Bahde, 1986;Wehrhahn et al, 1982). The authors of these studies proposed a spatio-temporal integration model, in which flies integrate motion energy until a certain threshold is reached (Borst and Bahde, 1986).…”

Section: Landingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although the functional relevance of this tethered flight phenomenon is not clear, free flight experiments suggest that fixation might serve to lead flies towards salient visual objects (Maimon et al, 2008) and thus could represent the earliest component of a landing sequence. Further, Drosophila and other flies often exhibit a flight pattern characterized by relatively long segments of straight flight, interspersed with rapid turns called saccades (Collett and Land, 1975;Wehrhahn et al, 1982;Tammero and Dickinson, 2002a). If these saccades are directed toward certain features, they too should be considered an early component of the landing sequence.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The visual control of landing and obstacle avoidance in the fruit flyDrosophila melanogaster

Breugel

Dickinson

2012

Journal of Experimental Biology

143

159

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SUMMARYLanding behavior is one of the most critical, yet least studied, aspects of insect flight. In order to land safely, an insect must recognize a visual feature, navigate towards it, decelerate, and extend its legs in preparation for touchdown. Although previous studies have focused on the visual stimuli that trigger these different components, the complete sequence has not been systematically studied in a free-flying animal. Using a real-time 3D tracking system in conjunction with high speed digital imaging, we were able to capture the landing sequences of fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) from the moment they first steered toward a visual target, to the point of touchdown. This analysis was made possible by a custom-built feedback system that actively maintained the fly in the focus of the high speed camera. The results suggest that landing is composed of three distinct behavioral modules. First, a fly actively turns towards a stationary target via a directed body saccade. Next, it begins to decelerate at a point determined by both the size of the visual target and its rate of expansion on the retina. Finally, the fly extends its legs when the visual target reaches a threshold retinal size of approximately 60deg. Our data also let us compare landing sequences with flight trajectories that, although initially directed toward a visual target, did not result in landing. In these ʻfly-byʼ trajectories, flies steer toward the target but then exhibit a targeted aversive saccade when the target subtends a retinal size of approximately 33deg. Collectively, the results provide insight into the organization of sensorimotor modules that underlie the landing and search behaviors of insects. Supplementary material available online at

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“…6D) of landscape signals-because such stimuli may be produced by the relative motion of gaps in the foliage or by branches moving in and out of shadows-and that it is the relative position, rather than the direction of motion, which carries the most useful information to a female fly. Sexual dimorphism in territorial defense and aerial pursuit is not specific to hoverflies (26), but is well described in a range of dipteran species, including, for example, houseflies (27,28).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Higher-order motion sensitivity in fly visual circuits

Lee

Nordström

2012

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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In higher-order motion stimuli, the direction of object motion does not follow the direction of luminance change. Such stimuli could be generated by the wing movements of a flying butterfly and further complicated by its motion in and out of shadows. Human subjects readily perceive the direction of higher-order motion, although this stands in stark contrast to prevailing motion vision models. Flies and humans compute motion in similar ways, and because flies behaviorally track bars containing higher-order motion cues, they become an attractive model system for investigating the neurophysiology underlying higher-order motion sensitivity. We here use intracellular electrophysiology of motionvision-sensitive neurons in the hoverfly lobula plate to quantify responses to stimuli containing higher-order motion. We show that motion sensitivity can be broken down into two separate streams, directionally coding for elementary motion and figure motion, respectively, and that responses to Fourier and theta motion can be predicted from these. The sensitivity is affected both by the stimulus' time course and by the neuron's underlying receptive field. Responses to preferred-direction theta motion are sexually dimorphic and particularly robust along the visual midline.T here is broad evidence that essentially all animals with imageforming eyes compute visual motion by correlating the luminance from two neighboring photo-inputs, after delaying the signal from one of these inputs (1). The detection of such firstorder motion, or Fourier motion, therefore depends on the coherent correlation of luminance across space and time and forms the theoretical basis for the elementary motion detector (EMD) (2). However, motion signals in nature may not form exact spacetime correlations, but may also be composed of higher-order signals related to changes in contrast or texture.The term "higher-order motion" refers to movement of visual objects that have no net motion energy (3) or that contain paradoxical motion cues (4). A "drift-balanced" stimulus can be described as a moving object that contains an internal pattern that varies from and replaces the background as the object itself moves, but which itself is nonmoving. Drift-balanced bars generate no response from standard EMDs, but sensitivity can be generated by adding front-end nonlinearities to the inputs (5). "Theta motion stimuli" (4) consist of a moving object that contains an internal pattern that moves coherently in the direction opposite to the object itself. In this case, an EMD would encode the motion of the internal pattern (i.e., the elementary motion, or EM) instead of the motion of the object itself (i.e., the figure motion, or FM). Sensitivity to theta motion can be generated by, for example, layering two EMD networks (6) or by recurrent motion processing (7).Vertebrates, including human observers, readily perceive higher-order motion, including drift-balanced and theta motion, even though these contain no net EM cues in the direction of FM (for recent review, see ref. 8)....

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Tracking and chasing in houseflies (Musca)

Cited by 112 publications

References 23 publications

Sexual dimorphism in the compound eye of Heliconius erato: a nymphalid butterfly with at least five spectral classes of photoreceptor

Sexual dimorphism in the compound eye of Heliconius erato: a nymphalid butterfly with at least five spectral classes of photoreceptor

The visual control of landing and obstacle avoidance in the fruit flyDrosophila melanogaster

Higher-order motion sensitivity in fly visual circuits

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