A geomagnetic declination compass for horizontal orientation in fruit flies
Sang-Hyup Lee
Department of Biology Education, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Republic of Korea
Search for more papers by this authorIn-Taek Oh
Department of Biology Education, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Republic of Korea
Search for more papers by this authorMaan Gee Lee
Department of Pharmacology, School of Medicine, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Republic of Korea
Brain Science and Engineering Institute, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Republic of Korea
Search for more papers by this authorYoung-Gu Ju
Department of Physics Education, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Republic of Korea
Search for more papers by this authorSoo-Chan Kim
Graduate School of Bio & Information Technology, Hankyong National University, Anseong, Republic of Korea
Search for more papers by this authorCorresponding Author
Kwon-Seok Chae
Department of Biology Education, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Republic of Korea
Brain Science and Engineering Institute, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Republic of Korea
Department of Nanoscience & Nanotechnology, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Republic of Korea
Correspondence Kwon-Seok Chae, Ph.D., Department of Biology Education, Kyungpook National University, Daegu 41566, Republic of Korea.
Email: [email protected]
Search for more papers by this authorSang-Hyup Lee
Department of Biology Education, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Republic of Korea
Search for more papers by this authorIn-Taek Oh
Department of Biology Education, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Republic of Korea
Search for more papers by this authorMaan Gee Lee
Department of Pharmacology, School of Medicine, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Republic of Korea
Brain Science and Engineering Institute, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Republic of Korea
Search for more papers by this authorYoung-Gu Ju
Department of Physics Education, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Republic of Korea
Search for more papers by this authorSoo-Chan Kim
Graduate School of Bio & Information Technology, Hankyong National University, Anseong, Republic of Korea
Search for more papers by this authorCorresponding Author
Kwon-Seok Chae
Department of Biology Education, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Republic of Korea
Brain Science and Engineering Institute, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Republic of Korea
Department of Nanoscience & Nanotechnology, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Republic of Korea
Correspondence Kwon-Seok Chae, Ph.D., Department of Biology Education, Kyungpook National University, Daegu 41566, Republic of Korea.
Email: [email protected]
Search for more papers by this authorAbstract
The Earth's geomagnetic field (GMF) is known to act as a sensory cue for magnetoreceptive animals such as birds, sea turtles, and butterflies in long-distance migration, as well as in flies, cockroaches, and cattle in short-distance movement or body alignment. Despite a wealth of information, the way that GMF components are used and the functional modality of the magnetic sense are not clear. A GMF component, declination, has never been proven to be a sensory cue in a defined biological context. Here, we show that declination acts as a compass for horizontal food foraging in fruit flies. In an open-field test, adopting the food conditioning paradigm, food-trained flies significantly orientated toward the food direction under ambient GMF and under eastward-turned magnetic field in the absence of other sensory cues. Moreover, a declination change within the natural range, by alteration only of either the east–west or north–south component of the GMF, produced significant orientation of the trained flies, indicating that they can detect and use the difference in these horizontal GMF components. This study proves that declination difference can be used for horizontal foraging, and suggests that flies have been evolutionarily adapted to incorporate a declination compass into their multi-modal sensorimotor system.
Supporting Information
| Filename | Description |
|---|---|
| enr12250-sup-0001-Data_S1.docWord document, 693.5 KB |
Figure S1 Absence of notable horizontal orientation of non-trained flies in Figure 2. (A) and (B) There was no notable orientation of the non-trained naïve flies relative to the magnetic north of the testing MF, either the ambient GMF (A) (α = 307.6°, r = 0.04, P = 0.97) or the eastward-turned MF (B) (α = 41.5°, r = 0.12, P = 0.73). For detailed flies' directional responses, see Table S1. Throughout, circular statistical analyses were performed using Rayleigh's test (for each experiment, n = 24). In each circular diagram, each of the dots, the arrow, and the solid lines indicate a fly's mean direction vector, group mean vector of the dots, and S.E.M. (standard error of the mean), respectively. The dashed circles indicate the minimum length of the group mean vector needed for significance, P = 0.05. GMF, geomagnetic field; MF, magnetic field; mN, magnetic north; gN, geographic north. Note that the dots are presented as clockwise angle from the mN of the testing ambient GMF or MF but not the gN (see Materials and methods). Figure S2 Absence of notable horizontal orientation of non-trained flies in Figure 3. (A–D) There was no notable orientation of the non-trained naïve flies relative to the magnetic north of the testing MFs, under MFs 2, 1, 3, and 2, respectively. (A) α = 27.3°, r = 0.13, P = 0.69, (B) α = 127.4°, r = 0.07, P = 0.90, (C) α = 20.9°, r = 0.12, P = 0.73, (D) α = 340.3°, r = 0.08, P = 0.85; Rayleigh's test (for each experiment, n = 24). For detailed flies' directional responses, see Suppl. Table 2. The dashed circles indicate the minimum length of the group mean vector needed for significance, P = 0.05. MF, magnetic field; mN, magnetic north; gN, geographic north. Note that the dots are presented as clockwise angle from the mN of the testing MF but not the gN (see Materials and methods). Table S1 Directional responses of the flies in Figure 2 and Figure S1. Table S2 Directional responses of the flies in Figure 3 and Figure S2. |
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