Vortex trapping recaptures energy in flying fruit flies.
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Lehmann FO
PROVIDER: S-EPMC7997922 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Similar Datasets
Project description:The recently growing interest in studying flight behaviours of fruit flies, Drosophila melanogaster, has highlighted the need for developing tools that acquire quantitative motion data. Despite recent advance of video tracking systems, acquiring a flying fly's orientation remains a challenge for these tools. In this paper, we present a novel method for estimating individual flying fly's orientation using image cues. Thanks to the line reconstruction algorithm in computer vision field, this work can thereby focus on the practical detail of implementation and evaluation of the orientation estimation algorithm. The orientation estimation algorithm can be incorporated into tracking algorithms. We rigorously evaluated the effectiveness and accuracy of the proposed algorithm by running experiments both on simulation data and on real-world data. This work complements methods for studying the fruit fly's flight behaviours in a three-dimensional environment.
| S-EPMC4501570 | biostudies-literature
Project description:As a fly flies through its environment, static objects produce moving images on its retina, and this optic flow is essential for steering and course corrections. Different types of rotation and translation produce unique flow fields, which fly brains are wired to identify. However, a feature of optic flow unique to translational motion is that adjacent images may move across the retina at different speeds, depending on their distance from the observer. Many insects take advantage of this depth cue, called motion parallax, to determine the distance to objects. We wanted to know if differential object speeds affect the corrective responses of fruit flies when they experience unplanned course deviations. We presented tethered flying flies with optic flow and measured their corrective responses to sideways perturbations of images with different relative forward speeds. We found that flying flies attend to the relative speed of dots during forward motion, and adjust their corrective responses to sideslip deviations depending on this cue. With no other distinguishing features (such as brightness or size), flies mounted a greater response to sideways deviations that were signaled by faster moving dots in the forward flow field, those that appeared radially closer by their speeds. This is consistent with the interpretation that fruit flies attend to seemingly nearer objects, and correct more strongly when they indicate a perturbation.
| S-EPMC3698416 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Acetoin in vinegar is an attractant to fruit flies when combined with acetic acid. To make vinegar more effective in attracting fruit flies with increased acetoin production, Komagataeibacter europaeus KGMA0119 was modified by specific gene disruption of the acetohydroxyacid isomeroreductase gene (ilvC). A previously constructed mutant lacking the putative ligand-sensing region in the leucine-responsive regulatory protein (KeLrp, encoded by Kelrp) was also used. The ilvC and Kelrp disruptants (KGMA5511 and KGMA7203, respectively) produced greater amounts of acetoin (KGMA5511, 0.11%; KGMA7203, 0.13%) than the wild-type strain KGMA0119 (0.069%). KGMA7203 produced a trace amount of isobutyric acid (0.007%), but the other strains did not. These strains produced approximately equal amounts of acetic acid (0.7%). The efficiency of fruit fly attraction was investigated with cultured Drosophila melanogaster. D. melanogaster flies (approximately 1,500) were released inside a cage (2.5 m by 2.5 m by 1.5 m) and were trapped with a device containing vinegar and a sticky sheet. The flies trapped on the sticky sheet were counted. The cell-free supernatant from KGMA7203 culture captured significantly more flies (19.36 to 36.96% of released flies) than did KGMA0119 (3.25 to 11.40%) and KGMA5511 (6.87 to 21.50%) cultures. Contrastingly, a 0.7% acetic acid solution containing acetoin (0.13%) and isobutyric acid (0.007%), which mimicked the KGMA7203 supernatant, captured significantly fewer flies (0.88 to 4.57%). Furthermore, the KGMA0119 supernatant with additional acetoin (0.13%) and isobutyric acid (0.007%) captured slightly more flies than the original KGMA0119 supernatant but fewer than the KGMA7203 supernatant, suggesting that the synergistic effects of acetic acid, acetoin, isobutyric acid, and unidentified metabolites achieved the efficient fly trapping of the KGMA7203 supernatant.
| S-EPMC4357926 | biostudies-literature
Project description:3D optical vortex trapping upon a polystyrene nanoparticle (NP) by a 1D gold dimer array is studied theoretically. The optical force field shows that the trapping mode can be contact or non-contact. For the former, the NP is attracted toward a corresponding dimer. For the latter, it is trapped toward a stagnation point of zero force with a 3D spiral trajectory, revealing optical vortex. Additionally the optical torque causes the NP to transversely spin, even though the system is irradiated by a linearly polarized light. The transverse spin-orbit interaction is manifested from the opposite helicities of the spin and spiral orbit. Along with the growth and decline of optical vortices the trapped NP performs a step-like motion, as the array continuously moves. Our results, in agreement with the previous experiment, identify the role of optical vortex in the near-field trapping of plasmonic nanostructure.
| S-EPMC6107535 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Tephritidae: Anastrepha spp., Bactrocera spp., Ceratitis spp., Dacus spp., Neoceratitis sp., Rhagoletis sp., and Zeugodacus spp. Raw sequence reads
| PRJNA398162 | ENA
Project description:About 60% of emerging infectious diseases in humans are of zoonotic origin. Their increasing number requires the development of new methods for early detection and monitoring of infectious agents in wildlife. Here, we investigated whether blood meals from hematophagous flies could be used to identify the infectious agents circulating in wild vertebrates. To this aim, 1230 blood-engorged flies were caught in the forests of Gabon. Identified blood meals (30%) were from 20 vertebrate species including mammals, birds and reptiles. Among them, 9% were infected by different extant malaria parasites among which some belonged to known parasite species, others to new parasite species or to parasite lineages for which only the vector was known. This study demonstrates that using hematophagous flies as 'flying syringes' constitutes an interesting approach to investigate blood-borne pathogen diversity in wild vertebrates and could be used as an early detection tool of zoonotic pathogens.
| S-EPMC5426900 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Mental retardation--known more commonly nowadays as intellectual disability--is a severe neurological condition affecting up to 3% of the general population. As a result of the analysis of familial cases and recent advances in clinical genetic testing, great strides have been made in our understanding of the genetic etiologies of mental retardation. Nonetheless, no treatment is currently clinically available to patients suffering from intellectual disability. Several animal models have been used in the study of memory and cognition. Established paradigms in Drosophila have recently captured cognitive defects in fly mutants for orthologs of genes involved in human intellectual disability. We review here three protocols designed to understand the molecular genetic basis of learning and memory in Drosophila and the genes identified so far with relation to mental retardation. In addition, we explore the mental retardation genes for which evidence of neuronal dysfunction other than memory has been established in Drosophila. Finally, we summarize the findings in Drosophila for mental retardation genes for which no neuronal information is yet available. All in all, this review illustrates the impressive overlap between genes identified in human mental retardation and genes involved in physiological learning and memory.
| S-EPMC3045854 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundThe olive fruit fly (Bactrocera oleae) is the most destructive pest of the olive cultivation worldwide causing significant production losses and olive fruit impoverishment, as its larvae feed exclusively on the olive fruit. Reproductive and sexual behavior, as well as host-plant recognition of the fly, are highly dependent on its chemosensory system. Therefore, exploring the role of genes that play a critical role in olfaction, could reveal potential molecular targets that determine species-specific features on chemical communication and could be used to impair sexual behavior.ResultsIn this study we identified the gene that encodes the conserved olfactory co-receptor Orco (Odorant receptor co-receptor), which interacts with all divergent insect odorant receptors, and investigated how disruption of its expression affects chemoreception. We initially searched the expression profile of Bo-Orco in both sexes during sexual maturation, as well as pre- and post-mating communication by relative quantitative real time PCR (qRT-PCR) analysis suggesting that Bo-Orco was abundantly expressed in sexually mature adults. We further investigated the functional role of Bo-Orco in mating and oviposition behavior via transient gene silencing that was performed through in vivo dsRNA hemolymph injections in sexually mature flies 7 days after eclosion. Orco-knockdown phenotypes in both sexes showed reduced copulation rates in mating competitiveness tests, possibly through impaired olfactory-mediated detection of sex pheromone. In addition, oviposition was significantly inhibited in dsRNA-Orco injected females in a post-mating behavior test.ConclusionsOur results demonstrate that Orco plays a crucial role in the reproductive behavior of the olive fruit fly, since pre- and post-mating processes were affected. This is the first report in the olive fruit fly that links the chemosensory pathway with the mating behavior and the reproductive potential at a molecular basis, rendering this gene a potential target for the improvement of the olive fruit fly population control techniques.
| S-EPMC7747369 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Spatially concentrating and manipulating biotherapeutic agents within the circulatory system is a longstanding challenge in medical applications due to the high velocity of blood flow, which greatly limits drug leakage and retention of the drug in the targeted region. To circumvent the disadvantages of current methods for systemic drug delivery, we propose tornado-inspired acoustic vortex tweezer (AVT) that generates net forces for noninvasive intravascular trapping of lipid-shelled gaseous microbubbles (MBs). MBs are used in a diverse range of medical applications, including as ultrasound contrast agents, for permeabilizing vessels, and as drug/gene carriers. We demonstrate that AVT can be used to successfully trap MBs and increase their local concentration in both static and flow conditions. Furthermore, MBs signals within mouse capillaries could be locally improved 1.7-fold and the location of trapped MBs could still be manipulated during the initiation of AVT. The proposed AVT technique is a compact, easy-to-use, and biocompatible method that enables systemic drug administration with extremely low doses.
| S-EPMC7848694 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Owing to aerodynamic instabilities, stable flapping flight requires ever-present fast corrective actions. Here, we investigate how flies control perturbations along their body roll angle, which is unstable and their most sensitive degree of freedom. We glue a magnet to each fly and apply a short magnetic pulse that rolls it in mid-air. Fast video shows flies correct perturbations up to 100° within 30 ± 7 ms by applying a stroke-amplitude asymmetry that is well described by a linear proportional-integral controller. For more aggressive perturbations, we show evidence for nonlinear and hierarchical control mechanisms. Flies respond to roll perturbations within 5 ms, making this correction reflex one of the fastest in the animal kingdom.
| S-EPMC4387536 | biostudies-literature