ADAPTIVE-CONTROL OF ODOR-GUIDED LOCOMOTION - BEHAVIORAL FLEXIBILITY AS AN ANTIDOTE TO ENVIRONMENTAL UNPREDICTABILITY

Many animals find distant unseen resources by guiding their locomotion through fluid media, using olfactory information acquired from plumes of odorant molecules issuing from the resource of interest This behav ior occurs in birds and fish, but much of our knowledge of it derives from flying insects, especially moths. it is a highly integrative beha vior, requiring not only the integration of olfactory information with a behavioral strategy to maintain contact with the odor plume, but al so an ability to detect She direction of fluid flow that is carrying t he odor cue. The temporal-spatial structure of the odor plume is deter mined by the fluid dynamics of the environment and it profoundly affec ts the behavior. Thus, the success of animals (or artificial agents) i s determined by an interaction between sensory input and internally ge nerated behaviors. We have implemented behavioral-level simulations of odor-modulated moth flight to understand how the properties of the od or stimulus and the behavioral system interact to result in successful source location. Even simple reflexive models can track predictable, laminar-flow plumes, but only models with internally generated behavio rs can track unpredictable, turbulent plumes. The ''best'' behavioral strategy depends on both the structure of the odor stimulus and an age nt's performance limits.