Do they see it at last? Insect magnetoreception after half a century
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| Year of publication | 2015 |
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| Description | Insects were among the very first animal models used in research on animal magnetoreception in the 1960s. Pioneering decades were devoted to investigations of honeybee dance orientations or location of feeder - behaviors which both turned out to be sensitive to the magnetic field. Nowadays, research on insect magnetic compass makes use of genetic tools on laboratory species like Drosophila and Blattella or classical migrant butterfly Danaus plexippus aiming at the old cardinal question: how does the receptor work? While at the beginning of the research magnetite particles rotating putatively as tiny compass needles in tissues were considered the only acceptable mechanism, last decade of research on insects brought a number of evidences in line with alternative hypothesis of radical pairs based on Cryptochromes – pigments likely controlling biochemical reactions sensitive to light and geomagnetic field. Up to the present day however, it is still puzzling what is the receptor exact mode of function neither do we know where it is localized in the insect body. Sometimes even the profit for the non-migrating animal like Drosophila may only be estimated at the best. Despite of contemporary ambiguities it may possibly be the insect model which will help to shed the light on molecular base of animal magnetoreception. Taking together, my talk will point out crucial discoveries of insect magnetoreception research and show that hypothesis of photochemical reception of geomagnetic field possibly modifying visually perceived patterns is getting stronger. The work was supported by The Czech Science Foundation (GA 13-119-08J). |
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