QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s):
Home     Help     Feedback     Subscriptions     Archive     Search     Table of Contents

This Article Figures Only Full Text Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Related articles in JEB Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Frye, M. A. Articles by Dickinson, M. H. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Frye, M. A. Articles by Dickinson, M. H.

The Journal of Experimental Biology 206, 843-855 (2003)
doi: 10.1242/jeb.00175

Odor localization requires visual feedback during free flight in Drosophila melanogaster

Mark A. Frye^1,*, Michael Tarsitano¹ and Michael H. Dickinson²

¹ Department of Integrative Biology, University of California — Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
² Bioengineering, Mail Code 138-78, California Institute of Technology, 1200 E. California Blvd, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA

^* Author for correspondence (e-mail: markfrye{at}socrates.berkeley.edu)

Accepted 26 November 2002

Adult fruit flies follow attractive odors associated with food and oviposition sites through widely varied visual landscapes. To examine the interaction between olfactory and visual cues during search behavior, we recorded three-dimensional flight trajectories as individuals explored controlled sensory landscapes. When presented with the source of an attractive odor invisibly embedded in the floor of a 1 m arena, flies spend most of their time hovering back and forth over the source when flying within a randomly textured visual background but fail to localize the source when searching within a uniform white surround. To test whether flies are associating unique features of the visual background with the strength of odor cues, we flew them within arenas containing evenly spaced vertical stripes. Flies readily localized the odor when flying within visual landscapes lacking azimuthal landmarks provided that vertical edges were present. Flies failed to localize odor when flying within a background pattern consisting of horizontal stripes. These results suggest that, whereas flies do not require spatially unique visual patterns to localize an odor source, they do require visual feedback generated by vertical edges. Quantitative shifts in several components of flight behavior accompanied successful odor localization. Flies decrease flight altitude, turn more often and approach visually textured walls of the arena near an odor source. A simple model based on the statistics of flight behavior supports the hypothesis that a subtle influence on these behaviors is sufficient to lead a fly to its food.

Key words: Drosophila, insect, free flight, olfaction, vision, chemotaxis, optomotor, collision avoidance, flight control

Related articles in JEB:

THE NOSE IS NOT ENOUGH

Gregory T. Huang
JEB 2003 206: 785. [Full Text]  

This article has been cited by other articles:

				D. M. Chow and M. A. Frye Context-dependent olfactory enhancement of optomotor flight control in Drosophila J. Exp. Biol., August 1, 2008; 211(15): 2478 - 2485. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				M. Mronz and F.-O. Lehmann The free-flight response of Drosophila to motion of the visual environment J. Exp. Biol., July 1, 2008; 211(13): 2026 - 2045. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				S. A. Budick, M. B. Reiser, and M. H. Dickinson The role of visual and mechanosensory cues in structuring forward flight in Drosophila melanogaster J. Exp. Biol., December 1, 2007; 210(23): 4092 - 4103. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				J. A. Bender and M. H. Dickinson Visual stimulation of saccades in magnetically tethered Drosophila J. Exp. Biol., August 15, 2006; 209(16): 3170 - 3182. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				S. A. Budick and M. H. Dickinson Free-flight responses of Drosophila melanogaster to attractive odors J. Exp. Biol., August 1, 2006; 209(15): 3001 - 3017. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				S. P. Sane and N. P. Jacobson Induced airflow in flying insects II. Measurement of induced flow J. Exp. Biol., January 1, 2006; 209(1): 43 - 56. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				J. Guo and A. Guo Crossmodal Interactions Between Olfactory and Visual Learning in Drosophila Science, July 8, 2005; 309(5732): 307 - 310. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				S. N. Fry, R. Sayaman, and M. H. Dickinson The aerodynamics of hovering flight in Drosophila J. Exp. Biol., June 15, 2005; 208(12): 2303 - 2318. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				R. Dudley and M. Dickinson The Comparative Biology of Ethanol Consumption: An Introduction to the Symposium Integr. Comp. Biol., August 1, 2004; 44(4): 267 - 268. [Full Text] [PDF]

				M. A. Frye and M. H. Dickinson Motor output reflects the linear superposition of visual and olfactory inputs in Drosophila J. Exp. Biol., January 1, 2004; 207(1): 123 - 131. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				G. T. Huang THE NOSE IS NOT ENOUGH J. Exp. Biol., March 1, 2003; 206(5): 785 - 785. [Full Text] [PDF]