Department of Entomology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA.
Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA.
J Exp Biol. 2018 Jun 12;221(Pt 11):jeb177774. doi: 10.1242/jeb.177774.
The use of sensory information to control behavior usually involves the integration of sensory input from different modalities. This integration is affected by behavioral states and experience, and it is also sensitive to the spatiotemporal patterns of stimulation and other general contextual cues. Following the finding that hawkmoths can use relative humidity (RH) as a proxy for nectar content during close-range foraging, we evaluate here whether RH could be used during locomotive flight under two simulated contexts in a wind tunnel: (1) dispersion and (2) search phase of the foraging behavior. Flying moths showed a bias towards air with a higher RH in a context devoid of foraging stimuli, but the addition of visual and olfactory floral stimuli elicited foraging responses that overrode the behavioral effects of RH. We discuss the results in relation to the putative adaptive value of the context-dependent use of sensory information.
利用感官信息来控制行为通常涉及整合来自不同感觉模态的输入。这种整合受到行为状态和经验的影响，并且对刺激的时空模式和其他一般上下文线索敏感。在发现天蛾可以在近距离觅食过程中使用相对湿度 (RH) 作为花蜜含量的替代指标后，我们在这里评估 RH 是否可以在风洞中两种模拟情境下的运动飞行中使用：（1）分散和（2）觅食行为的搜索阶段。在没有觅食刺激的情况下，飞行的飞蛾偏向于 RH 较高的空气，但添加视觉和嗅觉花朵刺激会引起觅食反应，从而克服 RH 对行为的影响。我们将结果与感知信息的上下文相关使用的假定适应性价值进行了讨论。
