Information-theoretic analysis of realistic odor plumes: What cues are useful for determining location?

ABSTRACT: Many species rely on olfaction to navigate towards food sources or mates. Olfactory navigation is a challenging task since odor environments are typically turbulent. While time-averaged odor concentration varies smoothly with the distance to the source, instaneous concentrations are intermittent and obtaining stable averages takes longer than the typical intervals between animals' navigation decisions. How to effectively sample from the odor distribution to determine sampling location is the focus in this article. To investigate which sampling strategies are most informative about the location of an odor source, we recorded three naturalistic stimuli with planar lased-induced fluorescence and used an information-theoretic approach to quantify the information that different sampling strateg

SUBMITTER: Boie SD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6054425 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature