Department of Biology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106-7080, U.S.A
Department of Biology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106-7080, U.S.A.
Biol Open. 2021 Mar 26;10(3):bio058649. doi: 10.1242/bio.058649.
Flying insects track turbulent odor plumes to find mates, food and egg-laying sites. To maintain contact with the plume, insects are thought to adapt their flight control according to the distribution of odor in the plume using the timing of odor onsets and intervals between odor encounters. Although timing cues are important, few studies have addressed whether insects are capable of deriving spatial information about odor distribution from bilateral comparisons between their antennae in flight. The proboscis extension reflex (PER) associative learning protocol, originally developed to study odor learning in honeybees, was used as a tool to ask if hawkmoths, can discriminate between odor stimuli arriving on either antenna. We show moths discriminated the odor arrival side with an accuracy of >70%. Information about spatial distribution of odor stimuli may be available to moths searching for odor sources, opening the possibility that they use both spatial and temporal odor information.This article has an associated First Person interview with the first author of the paper.
飞行昆虫追踪湍流气味羽流以寻找配偶、食物和产卵地。为了与羽流保持接触，昆虫被认为会根据羽流中气味的分布情况来调整飞行控制，方法是利用气味出现的时间和气味相遇之间的间隔。尽管时间线索很重要，但很少有研究探讨昆虫是否能够从飞行中它们的天线之间的双边比较中获得关于气味分布的空间信息。最初开发用于研究蜜蜂气味学习的触角延伸反射（PER）联想学习协议被用作工具，以询问是否天蛾能够区分到达任一只天线的气味刺激。我们发现飞蛾对气味到达侧的识别准确率>70%。寻找气味源的飞蛾可能会获得有关气味刺激空间分布的信息，这增加了它们同时使用空间和时间气味信息的可能性。本文有与论文第一作者的相关第一人称访谈。
