Diurnal dung beetles use the intensity gradient and the polarization pattern of the sky for orientation

Journal of Experimental Biology

Volumn 217, Issue 13, 2014, Pages 2422-2429

  Jundi, Basil El ^a   Smolka, Jochen ^a   Baird, Emily ^a   Byrne, Marcus J ^b   Dacke, Marie ^a,b  

^a LUND UNIVERSITY   (Sweden)

^b UNIVERSITY OF THE WITWATERSRAND   (South Africa)

Author keywords

Celestial cues; Compass orientation; Insect; Intensity difference; Polarized light; Scarabaeidae

Indexed keywords

COLEOPTERA; HEXAPODA; SCARABAEIDAE;

ANIMAL; ASSOCIATION; BEETLE; LIGHT; ORIENTATION; PHYSIOLOGY; RADIATION RESPONSE; SOUTH AFRICA;

ANIMALS; BEETLES; CUES; LIGHT; ORIENTATION; SOUTH AFRICA;

EID: 84901665451     PISSN: 00220949     EISSN: 14779145     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1242/jeb.101154     Document Type: Article

References (39)

1. Aneshansley, D. J. and Larkin, T. S. (1981). V-test is not a statistical test of 'homeward' direction. Nature 293, 239.
2. Baird, E., Byrne, M. J., Scholtz, C. H., Warrant, E. J. and Dacke, M. (2010). Bearing selection in ball-rolling dung beetles: is it constant? J. Comp. Physiol. A 196, 801-806.
3. Baird, E., Byrne, M. J., Smolka, J., Warrant, E. J. and Dacke, M. (2012). The dung beetle dance: an orientation behaviour? PLoS ONE 7, e30211.
4. Batschelet, E. (1965). Statistical Methods for the Analysis of Problems in Animal Orientation and Certain Biological Rhythms, pp. 29-31. Washington, DC: American Institute for Biological Sciences.
5. Batschelet, E. (1981). Circular Statistics in Biology. London: Academic.
6. Berens, P. (2009). CircStat: A MATLAB toolbox for circular statistics. J. Stat. Softw. 31.
7. Brines, M. L. and Gould, J. L. (1979). Bees have rules. Science 206, 571-573.
8. Byrne, M., Dacke, M., Nordström, P., Scholtz, C. and Warrant, E. (2003). Visual cues used by ball-rolling dung beetles for orientation. J. Comp. Physiol. A 189, 411-418.
9. Coemans, M. A., Vos Hzn, J. J. and Nuboer, J. F. (1994). The relation between celestial colour gradients and the position of the sun, with regard to the sun compass. Vision Res. 34, 1461-1470.
10. Collett, T. S. (1992). Landmark learning and guidance in insects. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. B 337, 295-303.
11. Dacke, M., Nilsson, D. E., Scholtz, C. H., Byrne, M. and Warrant, E. J. (2003a). Animal behaviour: insect orientation to polarized moonlight. Nature 424, 33.
12. Dacke, M., Nordström, P. and Scholtz, C. H. (2003b). Twilight orientation to polarised light in the crepuscular dung beetle Scarabaeus zambesianus. J. Exp. Biol. 206, 1535-1543.
13. Dacke, M., Byrne, M. J., Scholtz, C. H. and Warrant, E. J. (2004). Lunar orientation in a beetle. Proc. Biol. Sci. 271, 361-365.
14. Dacke, M., Byrne, M. J., Baird, E., Scholtz, C. H. and Warrant, E. J. (2011). How dim is dim? Precision of the celestial compass in moonlight and sunlight. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. B 366, 697-702.
15. Dacke, M., Byrne, M., Smolka, J., Warrant, E. and Baird, E. (2013a). Dung beetles ignore landmarks for straight-line orientation. J. Comp. Physiol. A 199, 17-23.
16. Dacke, M., Baird, E., Byrne, M., Scholtz, C. H. and Warrant, E. J. (2013b). Dung beetles use the Milky Way for orientation. Curr. Biol. 23, 298-300.
17. Dacke, M., el Jundi, B., Smolka, J., Byrne, M. and Baird, E. (2014). The role of the sun in the celestial compass of dung beetles. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. B 369, 20130036.
18. Edrich, W., Neumeyer, C. and von Helversen, O. (1979). "Anti-sun orientation" of bees with regard to a field of ultraviolet light. J. Comp. Physiol. A 134, 151-157.
19. Gál, J., Horváth, G., Barta, A. and Wehner, R. (2001). Polarization of the moonlit clear night sky measured by full-sky imaging polarimetry at full Moon: Comparison of the polarization of moonlit and sunlit skies. J. Geophys. Res. 106, 22647-22653.
20. Giurfa, M. and Capaldi, E. A. (1999). Vectors, routes and maps: new discoveries about navigation in insects. Trends Neurosci. 22, 237-242.
21. Homberg, U., Heinze, S., Pfeiffer, K., Kinoshita, M. and el Jundi, B. (2011). Central neural coding of sky polarization in insects. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. B 366, 680-687.
22. Kohler, M. and Wehner, R. (2005). Idiosyncratic route-based memories in desert ants, Melophorus bagoti: how do they interact with path-integration vectors? Neurobiol. Learn. Mem. 83, 1-12.
23. Labhart, T. and Meyer, E. P. (1999). Detectors for polarized skylight in insects: a survey of ommatidial specializations in the dorsal rim area of the compound eye. Microsc. Res. Tech. 47, 368-379.
24. Pomozi, I., Horváth, G. and Wehner, R. (2001). How the clear-sky angle of polarization pattern continues underneath clouds: full-sky measurements and implications for animal orientation. J. Exp. Biol. 204, 2933-2942.
25. Reppert, S. M., Zhu, H. and White, R. H. (2004). Polarized light helps monarch butterflies navigate. Curr. Biol. 14, 155-158.
26. Rossel, S. and Wehner, R. (1984). Celestial orientation in bees: the use of spectral cues. J. Comp. Physiol. A 155, 605-613.
27. Stalleicken, J., Mukhida, M., Labhart, T., Wehner, R., Frost, B. and Mouritsen, H. (2005). Do monarch butterflies use polarized skylight for migratory orientation? J. Exp. Biol. 208, 2399-2408.
28. Strutt, J. W. (1871). On the light from the sky, its polarization and colour. Philos. Mag. 41, 274-279.
29. Ugolini, A., Fantini, T. and Innocenti, R. (2003). Orientation at night: an innate moon compass in sandhoppers (Amphipoda: Talitridae). Proc. Biol. Sci. 270, 279-281.
30. Ugolini, A., Galanti, G. and Mercatelli, L. (2009). Difference in skylight intensity is a new celestial cue for sandhopper orientation (Amphipoda, Talitridae). Anim. Behav. 77, 171-175.
31. Ugolini, A., Galanti, G. and Mercatelli, L. (2012). The skylight gradient of luminance helps sandhoppers in sun and moon identification. J. Exp. Biol. 215, 2814-2819.
32. von Frisch, K. (1949). Die Polarisation des Himmelslichtes als orientierender Faktor bei den Tänzen der Bienen. Experientia 5, 142-148.
33. von Frisch, K. (1967). The Dance Language and Orientation of Bess. London, UK: Oxford University Press.
34. Wehner, R. (1984). Astronavigation in insects. Annu. Rev. Entomol. 29, 277-298.
35. Wehner, R. (1989). Neurobiology of polarization vision. Trends Neurosci. 12, 353-359.
36. Wehner, R. (1997). The ant's celestial compass system: spectral and polarization channels. In Orientation and Communication in Arthropods (ed. M. Lehrer), pp 145-185. Basel, Switzerland: Birkhäuser.
37. Wehner, R. and Labhart, T. (2006). Polarization vision. In Invertebrate Vision (ed. E. Warrant and D. E. Nilsson), pp. 291-348. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
38. Wehner, R. and Müller, M. (2006). The significance of direct sunlight and polarized skylight in the ant's celestial system of navigation. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 103, 12575-12579.
39. Weir, P. T. and Dickinson, M. H. (2012). Flying Drosophila orient to sky polarization. Curr. Biol. 22, 21-27.