Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 112, Issue 36, Pages 11395-11400Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1501272112
Keywords
navigation; insect; vision; central complex; dim light
Categories
Funding
- Vetenskapsradet
- Wallenberg Foundation
- Wenner-Gren-Foundation
- Royal Physiographic Society in Lund
- Lars-Hierta Memorial Foundation
- South African National Research Foundation
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Diurnal and nocturnal African dung beetles use celestial cues, such as the sun, the moon, and the polarization pattern, to roll dung balls along straight paths across the savanna. Although nocturnal beetles move in the same manner through the same environment as their diurnal relatives, they do so when light conditions are at least 1 million-fold dimmer. Here, we show, for the first time to our knowledge, that the celestial cue preference differs between nocturnal and diurnal beetles in a manner that reflects their contrasting visual ecologies. We also demonstrate how these cue preferences are reflected in the activity of compass neurons in the brain. At night, polarized skylight is the dominant orientation cue for nocturnal beetles. However, if we coerce them to roll during the day, they instead use a celestial body (the sun) as their primary orientation cue. Diurnal beetles, however, persist in using a celestial body for their compass, day or night. Compass neurons in the central complex of diurnal beetles are tuned only to the sun, whereas the same neurons in the nocturnal species switch exclusively to polarized light at lunar light intensities. Thus, these neurons encode the preferences for particular celestial cues and alter their weighting according to ambient light conditions. This flexible encoding of celestial cue preferences relative to the prevailing visual scenery provides a simple, yet effective, mechanism for enabling visual orientation at any light intensity.
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