Numerical tests of magnetoreception models assisted with behavioral experiments on American cockroaches
Many animals display sensitivity to external magnetic field, but it is only in the simplest organisms that the sensing mechanism is understood. Here we report on behavioural experiments where American cockroaches (Periplaneta americana) were subjected to periodically rotated external magnetic fields...
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| Format: | Journal Article |
| Language: | English |
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2021
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/10356/152005 |
| _version_ | 1826122470262833152 |
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| author | Lee, Kai Sheng Dumke, Rainer Paterek, Tomasz |
| author2 | School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences |
| author_facet | School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences Lee, Kai Sheng Dumke, Rainer Paterek, Tomasz |
| author_sort | Lee, Kai Sheng |
| collection | NTU |
| description | Many animals display sensitivity to external magnetic field, but it is only in the simplest organisms that the sensing mechanism is understood. Here we report on behavioural experiments where American cockroaches (Periplaneta americana) were subjected to periodically rotated external magnetic fields with a period of 10 min. The insects show increased activity when placed in a periodically rotated Earth-strength field, whereas this effect is diminished in a twelve times stronger periodically rotated field. We analyse established models of magnetoreception, the magnetite model and the radical pair model, in light of this adaptation result. A broad class of magnetite models, based on single-domain particles found in insects and assumption that better alignment of magnetic grains towards the external field yields better sensing and higher insect activity, is shown to be excluded by the measured data. The radical-pair model explains the data if we assume that contrast in the chemical yield on the order of one in a thousand is perceivable by the animal, and that there also exists a threshold value for detection, attained in an Earth-strength field but not in the stronger field. |
| first_indexed | 2024-10-01T05:49:00Z |
| format | Journal Article |
| id | ntu-10356/152005 |
| institution | Nanyang Technological University |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-10-01T05:49:00Z |
| publishDate | 2021 |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | ntu-10356/1520052023-02-28T19:53:28Z Numerical tests of magnetoreception models assisted with behavioral experiments on American cockroaches Lee, Kai Sheng Dumke, Rainer Paterek, Tomasz School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences Science::Physics Biological Physics Biophysics Many animals display sensitivity to external magnetic field, but it is only in the simplest organisms that the sensing mechanism is understood. Here we report on behavioural experiments where American cockroaches (Periplaneta americana) were subjected to periodically rotated external magnetic fields with a period of 10 min. The insects show increased activity when placed in a periodically rotated Earth-strength field, whereas this effect is diminished in a twelve times stronger periodically rotated field. We analyse established models of magnetoreception, the magnetite model and the radical pair model, in light of this adaptation result. A broad class of magnetite models, based on single-domain particles found in insects and assumption that better alignment of magnetic grains towards the external field yields better sensing and higher insect activity, is shown to be excluded by the measured data. The radical-pair model explains the data if we assume that contrast in the chemical yield on the order of one in a thousand is perceivable by the animal, and that there also exists a threshold value for detection, attained in an Earth-strength field but not in the stronger field. Ministry of Education (MOE) Published version This work is supported by the Singapore Ministry of Education Tier 1 Grant No. RG 127/14 and the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange NAWA Project No. PPN/PPO/2018/1/00007/U/00001. 2021-11-17T03:49:32Z 2021-11-17T03:49:32Z 2021 Journal Article Lee, K. S., Dumke, R. & Paterek, T. (2021). Numerical tests of magnetoreception models assisted with behavioral experiments on American cockroaches. Scientific Reports, 11(1), 12221-. https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-91815-x 2045-2322 https://hdl.handle.net/10356/152005 10.1038/s41598-021-91815-x 34108599 2-s2.0-85107472364 1 11 12221 en RG 127/14 Scientific Reports © 2021 The Author(s). This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. application/pdf |
| spellingShingle | Science::Physics Biological Physics Biophysics Lee, Kai Sheng Dumke, Rainer Paterek, Tomasz Numerical tests of magnetoreception models assisted with behavioral experiments on American cockroaches |
| title | Numerical tests of magnetoreception models assisted with behavioral experiments on American cockroaches |
| title_full | Numerical tests of magnetoreception models assisted with behavioral experiments on American cockroaches |
| title_fullStr | Numerical tests of magnetoreception models assisted with behavioral experiments on American cockroaches |
| title_full_unstemmed | Numerical tests of magnetoreception models assisted with behavioral experiments on American cockroaches |
| title_short | Numerical tests of magnetoreception models assisted with behavioral experiments on American cockroaches |
| title_sort | numerical tests of magnetoreception models assisted with behavioral experiments on american cockroaches |
| topic | Science::Physics Biological Physics Biophysics |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/10356/152005 |
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