3D escape: an alternative paradigm for spatial orientation studies in insects

Arthropods and in particular insects show a great variety of different exoskeletal sensors. For most arthropods, spatial orientation and gravity perception is not fully understood. In particular, the interaction of the different sensors is still a subject of ongoing research. A disadvantage of most of the experimental methods used to date to study the spatial orientation of arthropods in behavioral experiments is that the body or individual body parts are fixed partly in a non-natural manner. Therefore, often only the movement of individual body segments can be used to evaluate the experiments. We here present a novel experimental method to easily study 3D-escape movements in insects and analyze whole-body reaction. The animals are placed in a transparent container, filled with a lightweight substrate and rotating around two axes. To verify our setup, house crickets (Acheta domesticus) with selectively manipulated gravity-perceiving structures were analyzed. The spatial orientation behavior was quantified by measuring the time individuals took to escape toward the surface and the angular deviation toward the gravitational vector. These experiments confirm earlier results and therefore validated our experimental setup. Our new approach thus allows to investigate several comprehensive questions regarding the spatial orientation of insects and other animals.