Celestial navigation inDrosophila

Abstract

Many casual observers typecast Drosophila melanogaster as a stationary pest that lurks around fruit and wine. However, the omnipresent fruit fly, which thrives even in desert habitats, likely established and maintained its cosmopolitan status via migration over large spatial scales. To perform long-distance dispersal, flies must actively maintain a straight compass heading through the use of external orientation cues, such as those derived from the sky. In this Review, we address how D. melanogaster accomplishes longdistance navigation using celestial cues. We focus on behavioral and physiological studies indicating that fruit flies can navigate both to a pattern of linearly polarized light and to the position of the sunthe same cues utilized by more heralded insect navigators such as monarch butterflies and desert ants. In both cases, fruit flies perform menotaxis, selecting seemingly arbitrary headings that they then maintain over time. We discuss how the fly's nervous system detects and processes this sensory information to direct the steering maneuvers that underlie navigation. In particular, we highlight recent findings that compass neurons in the central complex, a set of midline neuropils, are essential for navigation. Taken together, these results suggest that fruit flies share an ancient, latent capacity for celestial navigation with other insects. Furthermore, they illustrate the potential of D. melanogaster to help us to elucidate both the cellular basis of navigation and mechanisms of directed dispersal on a landscape scale.

Path integration: how details of the honeybee waggle dance and the foraging strategies of desert ants might help in understanding its mechanisms

“…The close laboratory parallel is that during tethered flight, a fly will keep an artificial sun stably in one position on its retina for several hours (Fig. 5B), with different individuals keeping the sun in different retinal positions (Warren et al, 2019;Giraldo et al, 2018).…”

Is the Timing, Pace, and Success of the Monarch Migration Associated With Sun Angle?

“…Changes associated with the apparent path of the sun across the sky affect daily and seasonal patterns of behavior for many animal groups, including insects, crustaceans, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds (Duangphakdee et al, 2009;Dingle, 2014;Lebhardt and Ronacher, 2014;Vogt et al, 2014;Mason, 2017;Warren et al, 2019). Cues from the sun, photoperiod and light polarization, for example, are processed along with other environmental characteristics, such as magnetic fields (Dreyer et al, 2018), weather, and biological time-keeping mechanisms to determine migration phenology by a variety of species (Helm et al, 2013;Åkesson and Bianco, 2017;Muheim et al, 2018).…”

Sun, age and test location affect spatial orientation in human foragers in rainforests

“…Many diurnal animal species are known to use a sun compass in navigating towards distant goals [27] (e.g. desert ants [28,29], honeybees [30], monarch butterflies [31,32], dung beetles [33], fruit flies [34], pigeons [35], reef fish [36]). The position of the sun in the sky constantly changes from the East to the West across a day, and its daily movement trajectory varies with latitude and season.…”