The dynamics of bilateral olfactory search and navigation

Nour Riman, Jonathan D. Victor, Sebastian D. Boie, Bard Ermentrout

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

3 Scopus citations

Abstract

Animals use stereo sampling of odor concentration to localize sources and follow odor trails. We analyze the dynamics of a bilateral model that depends on the simultaneous comparison between odor concentrations detected by left and right sensors. The general model consists of three differential equations for the positions in the plane and the heading. When the odor landscape is an infinite trail, we reduce the dynamics to a planar system whose dynamics has just two fixed points. Using an integrable approximation (for short sensors) we estimate the basin of attraction. In the case of a radially symmetric landscape, we again can reduce the dynamics to a planar system, but the behavior is considerably richer with multistability, isolas, and limit cycles. As in the linear trail case, there is also an underlying integrable system when the sensors are short. In odor landscapes that consist of multiple spots and trail segments, we find periodic and chaotic dynamics and characterize the behavior on trails with gaps and trails that turn corners.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)100-120
Number of pages21
JournalSIAM Review
Volume63
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - 2021
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Nonlinear dynamics
  • Olfactory navigation
  • Stereo sampling
  • Tropotaxis

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