To keep on track during flight, fruitflies discount the skyward view

Mazo, Chantell; Theobald, Jamie C.

doi:10.1098/rsbl.2013.1103

Cited by 10 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…This hypothesis is supported by the discovery of a neural correlate in that visual interneuron VT1 fires spike bursts when presented with translational cues (Longden et al, 2017). It would be interesting to perform a set of experiments similar to those of Mazo and Theobald (2014) to see whether this model holds true for moths. It would also be interesting for us to perform plume tracking experiments on ventrally painted moths with decreasing altitudes above the floor of the odor plume to see whether we can observe the effects of a loss of translational motion in M. sexta.…”

Section: Plume Tracking and Optomotor Behaviors Unaffected By Lack Ofmentioning

confidence: 90%

“…In light of our results, another question that arises is the function of the ventral compound eye. Mazo and Theobald (2014) found that tethered D. melanogaster responded strongly to translational optic flow presented to the lower half of the visual field and the entire visual field, but less so when presented to the upper half. Their conclusions confirmed a prediction by Krapp and Hengstenberg (1996) that rotational and translational optic flow detection may be different information streams.…”

Section: Plume Tracking and Optomotor Behaviors Unaffected By Lack Ofmentioning

confidence: 94%

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Optomotor steering and flight control requires a specific sub-section of the compound eye in the hawkmoth,Manduca sexta

Copley

Parthasarathy

Willis

2018

Journal of Experimental Biology

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While tracking odor plumes, male hawkmoths use optic flow cues to stabilize their flight movements with respect to their environment. We studied the responses of freely flying moths tracking odor plumes in a laboratory wind tunnel and tethered moths in an optomotor flight simulator to determine the locations on the compound eye on which critical optic flow cues are detected. In these behavioral experiments, we occluded specific regions of the compound eye and systematically examined the moths' behavior for specific deficits in optic flow processing. Freely flying moths with the dorsal half of the compound eye painted were unable to maintain stable flight and track the wind-borne odor plume. However, the plume tracking performance of moths with the ventral half of their compound eyes painted was the same as unpainted controls. In a matched set of experiments, we presented tethered moths with moving vertically oriented sinusoidal gratings and found that individuals with their eyes unpainted, ventrally painted and medially painted all responded by attempting optomotor-driven turns in the same proportion. In contrast, individuals with their compound eyes dorsally painted, laterally painted and completely painted showed no optomotor turning response. We decreased the contrast of the visual stimulus and found that this relationship was consistent down to a contrast level of 2.5%. We conclude that visual input from the dorso-lateral region of the moth's visual world is critical for successful maintenance of flight stability and that this species' visual environment must meet or exceed a contrast ratio of 2.5% to support visual flight control.

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Section: Plume Tracking and Optomotor Behaviors Unaffected By Lack Ofmentioning

confidence: 90%

Section: Plume Tracking and Optomotor Behaviors Unaffected By Lack Ofmentioning

confidence: 94%

Optomotor steering and flight control requires a specific sub-section of the compound eye in the hawkmoth,Manduca sexta

Copley

Parthasarathy

Willis

2018

Journal of Experimental Biology

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“…Since objects below the horizon are typically closer to a fly, there is potentially strong selective pressure to evaluate translational disturbances below the horizon in detail [10,11]. In fact, the ventral region of the eye is mostly insensitive to certain types of rotation [12], while highly responsive to translation [13]. This functional compartmentalization likely reduces redundancy and enhances accuracy in the perception of self-motion during flight (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stabilizing responses to sideslip disturbances in Drosophila melanogaster are modulated by the density of moving elements on the ground

Ruiz

Theobald

2021

Biol. Lett.

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Stabilizing responses to sideslip disturbances are a critical part of the flight control system in flies. While strongly mediated by mechanoreception, much of the final response results from the wide-field motion detection system associated with vision. In order to be effective, these responses must match the disturbance they are aimed to correct. To do this, flies must estimate the velocity of the disturbance, although it is not known how they accomplish this task when presented with natural images or dot fields. The recent finding, that motion parallax in dot fields can modulate stabilizing responses only if perceived below the fly, raises the question of whether other image statistics are also processed differently between eye regions. One such parameter is the density of elements moving in translational optic flow. Depending on the habitat, there might be strong differences in the density of elements providing information about self-motion above and below the fly, which in turn could act as selective pressures tuning the visual system to process this parameter on a regional basis. By presenting laterally moving dot fields of different densities we found that, in Drosophila melanogaster , the amplitude of the stabilizing response is significantly affected by the number of elements in the field of view. Flies countersteer strongly within a relatively low and narrow range of element densities. But this effect is exclusive to the ventral region of the eye, and dorsal stimuli elicit an unaltered and stereotypical response regardless of the density of elements in the flow. This highlights local specialization of the eye and suggests the lower region may play a more critical role in translational flight stabilization.

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“…Wide fields of dots that simulate translational or rotational motion produce changes in ΔWBA that work to correct the apparent deviation from a forward heading (Theobald et al, 2010). These responses are robust and repeatable, although the correlation between motion and tracking is often lower than for bars (Mazo and Theobald, 2014). Further, translational motions produce stronger responses than rotational motions, but provide the independent depth cue of motion parallax, and additionally generate responses that inherently vary with elevation (Mazo and Theobald, 2014).…”

Section: Wide-field Tracking Responses Can Also Vary With the Visiblementioning

confidence: 99%

“…These responses are robust and repeatable, although the correlation between motion and tracking is often lower than for bars (Mazo and Theobald, 2014). Further, translational motions produce stronger responses than rotational motions, but provide the independent depth cue of motion parallax, and additionally generate responses that inherently vary with elevation (Mazo and Theobald, 2014). To avoid these effects, we presented rotational flow fields.…”

Section: Wide-field Tracking Responses Can Also Vary With the Visiblementioning

confidence: 99%

A visual horizon affects steering responses during flight in fruit flies

Caballero

Mazo

Rodriguez-Pinto

et al. 2015

Journal of Experimental Biology

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To navigate well through three-dimensional environments, animals must in some way gauge the distances to objects and features around them. Humans use a variety of visual cues to do this, but insects, with their small size and rigid eyes, are constrained to a more limited range of possible depth cues. For example, insects attend to relative image motion when they move, but cannot change the optical power of their eyes to estimate distance. On clear days, the horizon is one of the most salient visual features in nature, offering clues about orientation, altitude and, for humans, distance to objects. We set out to determine whether flying fruit flies treat moving features as farther off when they are near the horizon. Tethered flies respond strongly to moving images they perceive as close. We measured the strength of steering responses while independently varying the elevation of moving stimuli and the elevation of a virtual horizon. We found responses to vertical bars are increased by negative elevations of their bases relative to the horizon, closely correlated with the inverse of apparent distance. In other words, a bar that dips far below the horizon elicits a strong response, consistent with using the horizon as a depth cue. Wide-field motion also had an enhanced effect below the horizon, but this was only prevalent when flies were additionally motivated with hunger. These responses may help flies tune behaviors to nearby objects and features when they are too far off for motion parallax.

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To keep on track during flight, fruitflies discount the skyward view

Cited by 10 publications

References 22 publications

Optomotor steering and flight control requires a specific sub-section of the compound eye in the hawkmoth,Manduca sexta

Optomotor steering and flight control requires a specific sub-section of the compound eye in the hawkmoth,Manduca sexta

Stabilizing responses to sideslip disturbances in Drosophila melanogaster are modulated by the density of moving elements on the ground

A visual horizon affects steering responses during flight in fruit flies

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