Path Integration for Navigation

This experiment was performed to observe the taxis and kinesis of certain organisms. This is important because the organism’s survival and ability to reproduce depends on how they orient to stimuli using senses. We investigated the behavior of pill bugs to determine if they’ll move towards or away from the vinegar through smell. If I place pill bugs in a behavior tray with different chambers, then they’ll move away from the chambers that contains vinegar. A behavior tray with 5 chambers is used and 2 were control while the other 2 has cotton balls with a few drops of vinegar on it. 5 pill bugs are positioned in the center of the chambers and is covered with a transparent cover to observe the organisms for 10 minutes. Results had shown the class

Migita and Moriyama (2004) declare that in unknown environments, animal behaves inappropriately by expressing their innate or learned behavioral patterns. A. vulgare are often found constantly moving around the edge of the Petri dish because the environment is unfamiliar and appears as an obstacle (Migita and Moriyama 2004). One observation of pill bug’s movement is when they follow each other. Males can detect females through distance chemical communication (Beauché and Richard 2013). Due to aggregation pheromone, the A. vulgare are attracted to each other.

Q1A) In what ways does the biological constitution of a living organism determine, influence or limit its sense perception?

• Briefly describe the current theories regarding marine animals using the Earth’s magnetic field for navigation and list at least one animal that theoretically uses this method. Do you feel the theories regarding marine animals’ use of the Earth’s magnetic field for navigation are accurate? Why do you feel this way? How could this ability benefit humans?

5. (8 pts) Trace the image of the bee to perception. (Include all focusing, transduction, transmission and perception processes and structures).

Distinguish between the following pairs of terms: kinesis and taxis, circadian and circannual behavioral rhythms, landmarks and cognitive maps, classical and operant conditioning.

All living things respond to stimuli, including animals. In our experiment, we tested how roly-polies, or pill bugs, respond to two types of material: wet sand and wet dirt. Pill bugs are isopods, a group of 10,000 species living on land and in fresh water and ocean. They are under the phylum Arthropoda, class Crustacea, containing both crabs and shrimp. Pill bugs generally live in dark, moist environments with the decaying matter they eat.

Hippocampus does not encode the location by the tracking distance and the direction movement. The Direction and distance to the place they need to go is encoded. The brain has its own way of finding there navigational own goal-finding cells. Humans and animals, both of our brains help us find where we need to go and becomes very clear. Scientists know that mammals' brains have three different cell types that help navigate. The animal cells work in the brain and work together to help keep the location and movement they are making. New researchers have discovered two more types of brain cells that also help with navigating around space areas. They have found unrecognized structures in the brain that has to find their way

Juvenile Pacific Salmon and other migratory marine animals are travel many long distance under water to use resources in different oceanic regions. The main question is how these marine animals travel many long distance and able to locate Specific Ocean feeding areas without previous experience. Researchers experimentally demonstrate that the juvenile chinook salmon respond to magnetic field which lead them toward their marine feeding grounds. The “magnetic map” of Juvenile salmon to be inherited. These results, Similar with findings in the sea turtles indicate that the magnetic maps are genetically wide spread and show their navigational abilities evident in many long distance under water

The Hexapede senses its environment using sense of smell, hearing, seeing and feeling. However, the Hexapede heightened senses are feeling, seeing and hearing. Their body is covered with tiny hairs which serves as receptors. The Hexapede have very wide range vision. Its peripheral vision is supposed to be within the ranges of 250 to 270 degrees which is adventitious to detect predatory movements. Hexapede can hear at frequencies 3000 to 8000 hertz and they can detect ultra-high frequency sounds (Hanback, 2014)

3. (10 points) Trace the image of the bee to perception. (Include all focusing, transduction, transmission and perception processes and structures)

Although animals act on many impulses and mechanisms, many animals have proven that they have the ability to adapt and survive, showing that they have the ability to think of when they are ill, or feel pain. Animals have the ability to survive illness and changing environments. If animals only acted on mechanism, then they would exacerbate illness causing their demise, or they would fail to adapt to the changing environments, causing them to become extinct. The survival of species throughout years, proves that animals do not just act on mechanism, but also have a mind that is “tightly jointed”.

Vision is the most important sensory compared to other sensory modality therefore there is a wide range of research carried out on vision. Visual attention is defined as a term that portrays how individuals are able to change their view while attending to an image that is of a normal perspective due to the neurones in the cortex (Carasco, 2011). It is often described as a focal point which is situated with different locations in the region of space (Wright, 1998). Visual search requires detecting a specific target as quickly as possible. For example, trying to find your car in a large car park. By focusing our attention to the specific environment it improves our visual search of the target (Keane et al., 2015). The speed of a visual search

Animals navigate the world with different types of cues either allocentric or egocentric (Tornick). Allocentric cues are external, such as visual cues or a beacon (tornick). Egocentric cues are cues within the animal such as vestibular systems (Tornick).

Phonotaxis is the movement of any organism toward or away a sound stimulus. An example is a female wax moth moving towards a male’s song or a male stopping his song if a bat is approaching. Long-distance orientation: toward or a goal they do not yet perceive with their senses. Think compass orientation. Monarch butterflies will migrate from the northern and central continents to Mexico or near the equator in order to escape the winter.