Event Abstract Back to Event Head – Body coordination in Drosophila melanogaster Bart R. Geurten1*, Philipp Jähde1 and Martin C. Göpfert1 1 Georg-August University of Göttingen, Department of Cellular Neurobiology, Germany Drosophila melanogaster like many other insects organises its locomotion in prolonged phases of translational movement that are interspersed by fast rotations called saccades. This saccadic locomotion strategy, which is found in insects and vertebrates (Collett and Land 1975; Boeddeker et al. 2010; Ribak, Egge, and Swallow 2009; Geurten et al. 2010; Eckmeier et al. 2008) is believed to enhance the 3D-information in visual perception. Schilstra and van Hateren documented that the head of blowflies rotates even faster than the body (Schilstra and Hateren 1999; Hateren and Schilstra 1999), further reducing the effective duration of the saccade. We tracked freely walking Drosophila melanogaster and found that they intersperse translational movements with fast saccadic rotations, similar as reported for blowflies by Blaj and van Hateren (Blaj and Van Hateren 2004). Reconstructing the head and body movements from high-speed recordings revealed that unlike blowflies, Drosophila does not move its head relative to the thorax during the saccades, which thus represent pure ‘body’ saccades. Even though single saccadic movements of the head were observed, saccadic yaw movements seem to be governed by a different behavioural strategy than in walking Calliphora. By modelling the visual input, we found that unlike blowflies, Drosophila would not profit from additional head rotations because of the lower spatial acuity of its eyes. This explains why Drosophila performs pure body saccades – during walking and presumably also during flight. References Blaj, G, and J H van Hateren. 2004. “Saccadic Head and Thorax Movements in Freely Walking Blowflies.” Journal of Comparative Physiology. A, Neuroethology, Sensory, Neural, and Behavioral Physiology 190 (11) (November): 861–868. Boeddeker, Norbert, Laura Dittmar, Wolfgang Stürzl, and Martin Egelhaaf. 2010. “The Fine Structure of Honeybee Head and Body Yaw Movements in a Homing Task.” Proceedings. Biological Sciences / The Royal Society 277 (1689) (June 22): 1899–1906. Collett, T.S., and M.F. Land. 1975. “Visual Control of Flight Behaviour in the Hoverfly Syritta Pipiens L.” Journal of Comparative Physiology A: Neuroethology, Sensory, Neural, and Behavioral Physiology V99 (1) (March): 1–66. Eckmeier, D., B.R.H. Geurten, D. Kress, M. Mertes, R. Kern, M. Egelhaaf, and H.J. Bischof. 2008. “Gaze Strategy in the Free Flying Zebra Finch (Taeniopygia Guttata).” PLoS ONE 3 (12) (December): e3956. Geurten, Bart R. H., Roland Kern, Elke Braun, and Martin Egelhaaf. 2010. “A Syntax of Hoverfly Flight Prototypes.” Journal of Experimental Biology 213 (14) (July 15): 2461–2475. Hateren, JH, and C Schilstra. 1999. “Blowfly Flight and Optic Flow. II. Head Movements During Flight.” Journal of Experimental Biology 202 (11) (June 1): 1491–1500. Ribak, Gal, Alison R. Egge, and John G. Swallow. 2009. “Saccadic Head Rotations During Walking in the Stalk-eyed Fly (Cyrtodiopsis Dalmanni).” Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. Schilstra, C., and J.H. van Hateren. 1999. “Blowfly Flight and Optic Flow I. Thorax Kinematics and Flight Dynamics.” Journal of Experimental Biology 202 (11) (June): 1481–1490. Keywords: motion vision, Drosophila melanogaster, saccade, Neuroethology, Visual Acuity Conference: International Conference on Invertebrate Vision, Fjälkinge, Sweden, 1 Aug - 8 Aug, 2013. Presentation Type: Poster presentation preferred Topic: Motion vision Citation: Geurten BR, Jähde P and Göpfert MC (2019). Head – Body coordination in Drosophila melanogaster. Front. Physiol. Conference Abstract: International Conference on Invertebrate Vision. doi: 10.3389/conf.fphys.2013.25.00055 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 28 Feb 2013; Published Online: 09 Dec 2019. * Correspondence: Dr. Bart R Geurten, Georg-August University of Göttingen, Department of Cellular Neurobiology, Göttingen, 37077, Germany, bgeurte@gwdg.de Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Bart R Geurten Philipp Jähde Martin C Göpfert Google Bart R Geurten Philipp Jähde Martin C Göpfert Google Scholar Bart R Geurten Philipp Jähde Martin C Göpfert PubMed Bart R Geurten Philipp Jähde Martin C Göpfert Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.