Aquatic Sciences Meeting, Albuquerque 2001

SS23 In Transition: Biomechanics of Sensory Perception (Disciplinary Connections)

Date: Thursday, February 15, 2001, Time: 3:45:00 PM

Location: Acoma/Zuni/Tesuque

Breithaupt, T, , University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany, thomas.breithaupt@uni-konstanz.de

CRAYFISH CHEMO-ORIENTATION UNDER TURBULENT AND UNDER STAGNANT FLOW CONDITIONS

Many aquatic organisms find their food by orienting in the odor plume originating from the food source. In streams and rivers, the odor plume is shaped by eddies and turbulences and has a complex, continuously changing structure that may be hard to be analyzed by animals. In ponds and small lakes there is hardly any flow that could carry odor molecules to a searching animal. In a comparative approach we examined the orientation mechanisms of three crayfish species in an artificial brook (recirculating flume) and in an artificial pond by visualizing both the odor and the flow field in front of searching animals and by correlating these stimuli with search path parameters. These analyses showed that in a stream the odor plume initiates and maintains the search while the flow acts as a directional cue to guide the search to the source ("odor-induced rheotaxis"). In the no-flow situation the ability of crayfish to generate directed flow fields by their own appendages was essential to draw odor molecules to the chemoreceptors and to find the odor source.

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Aquatic Sciences Meeting, Albuquerque 2001

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