Insect visuomotor delay adjustments in group flight support swarm cohesion.

ABSTRACT: Flying insects routinely demonstrate coordinated flight in crowded assemblies despite strict communication and processing constraints. This study experimentally records multiple flying insects tracking a moving visual stimulus. System identification techniques are used to robustly identify the tracking dynamics, including a visuomotor delay. The population delay distributions are quantified for solo and group behaviors. An interconnected visual swarm model incorporating heterogeneous delays is developed, and bifurcation analysis and swarm simulation are applied to assess swarm stability under the delays. The experiment recorded 450 insect trajectories and quantified visual tracking delay variation. Solitary tasks showed a 30ms average delay and standard deviation of 50ms, while group behav

SUBMITTER: Islam MS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10115836 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature