title: INSECT FLIGHT. Luminance-dependent visual processing enables moth flight in low light.
abstract: Animals must operate under an enormous range of light intensities. Nocturnal and twilight flying insects are hypothesized to compensate for dim conditions by integrating light over longer times. This slowing of visual processing would increase light sensitivity but should also reduce movement response times. Using freely hovering moths tracking robotic moving flowers, we showed that the moth's visual processing does slow in dim light. These longer response times are consistent with models of how visual neurons enhance sensitivity at low light intensities, but they could pose a challenge for moths feeding from swaying flowers. Dusk-foraging moths avoid this sensorimotor tradeoff; their nervous systems slow down but not so much as to interfere with their ability to track the movements of real wind-blown flowers.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA. School of Physics and School of Applied Physiology, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA. sponberg@physics.gatech.edu.
authors.forename: Simon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sponberg
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA. Department of Biology, Northwest University, Kirkland, WA 98033, USA.
authors.forename: Jonathan P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Dyhr
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA.
authors.forename: Robert W
authors.initials: RW
authors.lastname: Hall
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA.
authors.forename: Thomas L
authors.initials: TL
authors.lastname: Daniel
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005426:Flight, Animal; D008027:Light; D018402:Manduca; D009036:Moths; D014785:Vision, Ocular