Investigating the role of active sampling in C.elegans during individual chemotaxis
1 Max Planck Research Group Neural Information Flow, Max Planck Institute for Neurobiology of Behavior u2013 caesar, Bonn, Germany. International Max Planck Research School for Brain and Behavior
2 Max Planck Research Group Neural Information Flow, Max Planck Institute for Neurobiology of Behavior u2013 caesar, Bonn, Germany
In nature, Caenorhabditis elegans are commonly found in rotten fruit where they can forage for diverse bacterial species and fungi to feed on. Food patches are often small and interspersed over large distances and C.elegans must explore its environment to locate a suitable bacterial colony for feeding. Previous studies have shown that C.elegans demonstrate effective navigation between food patches, with targeted navigation to food sources and a few episodes of random exploration, suggesting an effective mechanism for localizing the food spots. However, the underlying neural and algorithmic mechanisms enabling this behavior remain incompletely understood. A key environmental factor for navigation in C.elegans is odors, which the nematode senses using an array of olfactory neurons. In fact, odors are capable of conveying information regarding the quality and type of food, facilitating efficient exploitation of high-value resources. In addition to olfactory cues, C.elegans can sample its environment by ingesting small amounts of material from the surrounding media to assess the local food density. We hypothesize that sampling is required to accurately detect rapidly changing food concentrations e.g., at patch edges, whereas odors are required for general directional movement. I will present how we combine a custom-designed odor chamber with a controllable attractant gradient with behavioral tracking microscopy to investigate how locomotion and sampling are coupled during foraging and how the coupling facilitates optimal food intake will be used to observe and quantify C. elegans chemotaxis behavior.