Hummingbird flight response to moving visual patterns
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1
University of British Columbia, Canada
Hovering, or station-holding during flight, is a behavior that requires the flying animal to maintain a stable body position in space. Using visual information, the requisite stability can be achieved by producing motor output that minimizes optic flow along the three major translational axes: up-down, left-right, and forward-backward. Birds are highly visual animals and hummingbirds represent a unique avian clade that specializes in hovering flight. We investigated the effects of moving black-and-white visual patterns on Anna’s hummingbirds’ (Calypte anna) ability to station-hold during voluntary feeding flights in a cylindrical virtual reality flight arena with large projections of continuous motion stimuli on the wall of the chamber. The birds exhibited strong, repeatable responses to visual manipulations by changing their flight behavior during hovering both when docked at the feeder and when undocked. Rotating spiral patterns produced behavioral changes to match the presented optic flow patterns in both hovering modes. In contrast, linear gratings only produced the expected responses when the birds were undocked. Docking at the feeder likely provides tactile stimulation, which has priority over optic flow when in physical contact with the food source. Our results indicate that hummingbirds rely heavily upon visual information to maintain stationary positions during flight, but also suggest a hierarchy for how multiple sources of sensory information influence flight control.
Keywords:
flight,
Vision
Conference:
Tenth International Congress of Neuroethology, College Park. Maryland USA, United States, 5 Aug - 10 Aug, 2012.
Presentation Type:
Poster Presentation (see alternatives below as well)
Topic:
Sensorimotor Integration
Citation:
Goller
B and
Altshuler
DL
(2012). Hummingbird flight response to moving visual patterns.
Conference Abstract:
Tenth International Congress of Neuroethology.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnbeh.2012.27.00224
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Received:
30 Apr 2012;
Published Online:
07 Jul 2012.
*
Correspondence:
Dr. Douglas L Altshuler, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, doug@zoology.ubc.ca