Meeting Abstract
For most animals in flight, wide-field motion input is vital for maintaining control of movement. Males of the crepuscular hawkmoth, Manduca sexta use this information, along with olfactory and mechanosensory input to track odor plumes to food and mates. While both involve tracking a plume of odor, it is assumed that wide-field motion will be used in the same way to stabilize flight during plume tracking. To asses this, M. sexta males were challenged to track wind-borne plumes of flower scent or female pheromone with a single compound eye painted, either right or left. Loss of input from one of the compound eyes did not significantly impact the moths’ ability to maintain controlled flight before orienting to the odor, and compared to intact controls, these individuals (n=23 for both groups) did not perform in a significantly different manner while tracking a plume of female sex pheromone. However, while tracking a tobacco flower, the ability for these individuals (n=28 for both groups) to track the plume of floral scent (14% for experimental animals and 71% for controls), then feed from the flower was greatly reduced. The results suggest that the motivation towards a particular stimulus also impacts if the animal will or can use wide-field motion to orient towards it. In the context of searching for mates, the motivation to orient to an attractive odor is high, so if the animal is able to perform the behavior, it will as long as it has enough visual input to control flight. Whereas if the animal is presented with a less-compelling stimulus, such as food, it will be less likely to attempt orientation towards it when its wide-field motion input is reduced. We kindly thank Jennifer Milligan for her assistance. These experiments, SC, and MAW were supported by AFOSR grant FA9550-12-1-0237
