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Kannegieser S, Kraft N, Haan A, Stöckl A. Visual guidance fine-tunes probing movements of an insect appendage. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2024; 121:e2306937121. [PMID: 38285936 PMCID: PMC10861887 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2306937121] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/28/2023] [Accepted: 12/13/2023] [Indexed: 01/31/2024] Open
Abstract
Visually guided reaching, a regular feature of human life, comprises an intricate neural control task. It includes identifying the target's position in 3D space, passing the representation to the motor system that controls the respective appendages, and adjusting ongoing movements using visual and proprioceptive feedback. Given the complexity of the neural control task, invertebrates, with their numerically constrained central nervous systems, are often considered incapable of this level of visuomotor guidance. Here, we provide mechanistic insights into visual appendage guidance in insects by studying the probing movements of the hummingbird hawkmoth's proboscis as they search for a flower's nectary. We show that visually guided proboscis movements fine-tune the coarse control provided by body movements in flight. By impairing the animals' view of their proboscis, we demonstrate that continuous visual feedback is required and actively sought out to guide this appendage. In doing so, we establish an insect model for the study of neural strategies underlying eye-appendage control in a simple nervous system.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sören Kannegieser
- Behavioral Physiology and Sociobiology (Zoology II), University of Würzburg, Biozentrum am Hubland, Würzburg97074, Germany
| | - Nadine Kraft
- Behavioral Physiology and Sociobiology (Zoology II), University of Würzburg, Biozentrum am Hubland, Würzburg97074, Germany
| | - Alexa Haan
- Behavioral Physiology and Sociobiology (Zoology II), University of Würzburg, Biozentrum am Hubland, Würzburg97074, Germany
| | - Anna Stöckl
- Behavioral Physiology and Sociobiology (Zoology II), University of Würzburg, Biozentrum am Hubland, Würzburg97074, Germany
- Department of Biology, University of Konstanz, Konstanz78464, Germany
- Zukunftskolleg, Universität Konstanz, Konstanz78464, Germany
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Abstract
Our current understanding of manipulation is based on primate hands, resulting in a detailed but narrow perspective of ways to handle objects. Although most other animals lack hands, they are still capable of flexible manipulation of diverse objects, including food and nest materials, and depend on dexterity in object handling to survive and reproduce. Birds, for instance, use their bills and feet to forage and build nests, while insects carry food and construct nests with their mandibles and legs. Bird bills and insect mandibles are much simpler than a primate hand, resembling simple robotic grippers. A better understanding of manipulation in these and other species would provide a broader comparative perspective on the origins of dexterity. Here we contrast data from primates, birds and insects, describing how they sense and grasp objects, and the neural architectures that control manipulation. Finally, we outline techniques for collecting comparable manipulation data from animals with diverse morphologies and describe the practical applications of studying manipulation in a wide range of species, including providing inspiration for novel designs of robotic manipulators.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shoko Sugasawa
- Centre for Biological Diversity, Harold Mitchell Building, School of Biology, University of St Andrews, St Andrews KY16 9TH, UK
| | - Barbara Webb
- School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh, 10 Crichton Street, Edinburgh EH8 9AB, UK
| | - Susan D Healy
- Centre for Biological Diversity, Harold Mitchell Building, School of Biology, University of St Andrews, St Andrews KY16 9TH, UK
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Ostheim J, Delius JAM, Delius JD. Eyelid squinting during food pecking in pigeons. ACTA ACUST UNITED AC 2020; 223:jeb.223313. [PMID: 32341175 DOI: 10.1242/jeb.223313] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/10/2020] [Accepted: 04/22/2020] [Indexed: 11/20/2022]
Abstract
The visual control of pecking by pigeons (Columba livia) has latterly been thought to be restricted to the fixation stops interrupting their downward head movements because these stops prevent interference by motion blur. Pigeons were also assumed to close their eyes during the final head thrust of the peck. Here, we re-examined their pecking motions using high-speed video recordings and supplementary provisions that permitted a three-dimensional spatial analysis of the movement, including measurement of pupil diameter and eyelid slit width. The results confirm that pigeons do not close their eyes completely during the presumed optically ballistic phase of pecking. Instead, their eyelids are narrowed to a slit. The width of this slit is sensitive to both the ambient illumination level and the visual background against which seed targets have to be detected and grasped. There is also evidence of some interaction between pupil diameter and eyelid slit width. We surmise that besides being an eye-protecting reflex, the partial covering of the pupil with the eyelids may increase the depth of focus, enabling pigeons to obtain sharp retinal images of peck target items at very close range and during the beak-gape 'handling' of food items and occasional grit particles.
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Affiliation(s)
- Joachim Ostheim
- Experimentelle Psychologie, Universität Konstanz, 78464 Konstanz, Germany
| | - Julia A M Delius
- Center for Lifespan Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, 14195 Berlin, Germany
| | - Juan D Delius
- Experimentelle Psychologie, Universität Konstanz, 78464 Konstanz, Germany
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Harada K, Hayashi N, Kagaya K. Individual behavioral type captured by a Bayesian model comparison of cap making by sponge crabs. PeerJ 2020; 8:e9036. [PMID: 32461827 PMCID: PMC7231507 DOI: 10.7717/peerj.9036] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/12/2019] [Accepted: 04/01/2020] [Indexed: 12/29/2022] Open
Abstract
'Animal personality' is considered to be developed through complex interactions of an individual with its surrounding environment. How can we quantify the 'personality' of an individual? Quantifying intra- and inter-individual variability of behavior, or individual behavioral type, appears to be a prerequisite in the study of animal personality. We propose a statistical method from a predictive point of view to measure the appropriateness of our assumption of 'individual' behavior in repeatedly measured behavioral data from several individuals. For a model case, we studied the sponge crab Lauridromia dehaani known to make and carry a 'cap' from a natural sponge for camouflage. Because a cap is most likely to be rebuilt and replaced repeatedly, we hypothesized that each individual crab would grow a unique behavioral type and it would be observed under an experimentally controlled environmental condition. To test the hypothesis, we conducted behavioral experiments and employed a new Bayesian model-based comparison method to examine whether crabs have individual behavioral types in the cap making behavior. Crabs were given behavioral choices by using artificial sponges of three different sizes. We modeled the choice of sponges, size of the trimmed part of a cap, size of the cavity of a cap, and the latency to produce a cap, as random variables in 26 models, including hierarchical models specifying the behavioral types. In addition, we calculated the marginal-level widely applicable information criterion (mWAIC) values for hierarchical models to evaluate and compared them with the non-hierarchical models from the predictive point of view. As a result, the crabs of less than about 9 cm in size were found to make caps from the sponges. The body size explained the behavioral variables namely, choice, trimmed cap characteristics, and cavity size, but not latency. Furthermore, we captured the behavioral type as a probabilistic distribution structure of the behavioral data by comparing WAIC. Our statistical approach is not limited to behavioral data but is also applicable to physiological or morphological data when examining whether some group structure exists behind fluctuating empirical data.
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Affiliation(s)
- Keita Harada
- Seto Marine Biological Laboratory, Field Science, Education and Reseach Center, Kyoto University, Wakayama, Japan
| | - Naoki Hayashi
- Simulation and Mining Division, NTT DATA Mathematical Systems Inc., Tokyo, Japan
- School of Computing, Department of Mathematical and Computing Science, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan
| | - Katsushi Kagaya
- Seto Marine Biological Laboratory, Field Science, Education and Reseach Center, Kyoto University, Wakayama, Japan
- The Hakubi Center for Advanced Research, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan
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Abstract
Grasping movement in primates is known to be a visually guided behavior and the aperture of hand opening is adjusted to the target size on the basis of visual information. The analogous behavior can be found in birds, called 'pecking', consisting of head-reaching and bill-grasping. Bill-grasping has been investigated mainly in pigeons and an aperture adjustment as seen in primates has been reported. This study focused on kinematics of pecking in crows, known to possess dexterous visuomotor skills, to examine whether crows adjust the grasping aperture to food diameter with a kinematic mechanism similar to that in pigeons. The pecking at a small piece of food was video recorded to analyze the grasping aperture. The results showed that the grasping aperture was proportional to food diameter. Kinematic analysis showed that the aperture adjustment was mediated by grasping velocity and grasping duration, which is consistent with the findings of previous research on pecking in pigeons. However, the relative contribution of grasping velocity was much higher than that of grasping duration. Our findings suggest the different sensorimotor mechanisms to control bill-grasping between the avian species with different foraging ecology.
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Matsui H, Izawa EI. Rapid adjustment of pecking trajectory to prism-induced visual shifts in crows as compared with pigeons. ACTA ACUST UNITED AC 2019; 222:jeb.182345. [PMID: 30683665 DOI: 10.1242/jeb.182345] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/09/2018] [Accepted: 01/08/2019] [Indexed: 11/20/2022]
Abstract
Pecking in birds is analogous to reaching and grasping movements in primates. Earlier studies on visuomotor control in birds, which were conducted mostly in pigeons, suggested that avian pecking is controlled feedforwardly, and is out of the control of visual guidance during movement. However, recent studies using crows suggested a role of vision in pecking control during movement. To unveil what visuomotor mechanisms underlie the flexibility of pecking in crows, we examined whether pigeons and crows adjust their pecking to the visual distortion induced by prisms. Because prisms induce visual shifts of object positions, birds were required to adjust their movements. Pecking kinematics were examined before and after attaching prisms in front of the birds' eyes. Analysis of lateral deviation caused by the prisms showed that crows rapidly adjusted their pecking trajectories, but pigeons did so slowly. Angular displacement also increased in pigeons after attachment of the prism, but decreased in crows. These responses to prisms were consistent among individuals in pigeons but varied in crows, though the adjustment of pecking commonly succeeded in crows. These results suggest that pecking in pigeons predominantly involves feedforward control and that the movement is determined depending on the visual information available before the initiation of pecking. In contrast, the results from crows suggest that their pecking trajectories are corrected during the movement, supporting on-line visual control. Our findings provide the first evidence to suggest the on-line visual control of pecking in birds.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hiroshi Matsui
- Department of Psychology, Keio University, Tokyo 108-8345, Japan .,Japan Society of Promotion for Science, Tokyo 102-0083, Japan
| | - Ei-Ichi Izawa
- Department of Psychology, Keio University, Tokyo 108-8345, Japan
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Nomura T, Izawa EI. Avian brains: Insights from development, behaviors and evolution. Dev Growth Differ 2017; 59:244-257. [DOI: 10.1111/dgd.12362] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/24/2017] [Revised: 04/10/2017] [Accepted: 04/16/2017] [Indexed: 12/29/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Tadashi Nomura
- Developmental Neurobiology; Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine; INAMORI Memorial Building 1-5 Shimogamo-Hangi cho Sakyoku Kyoto 606-0823 Japan
| | - Ei-Ichi Izawa
- Department of Psychology; Keio University; 2-15-45 Mita Minatoku Tokyo 108-8345 Japan
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