Coping with life in aquatic habitats: can fish use hydrostatic pressure to orient through volumetric environments?
Unlike most terrestrial environments, aquatic systems are volumes through which animals can move in all directions; up and down as well as side to side. Aquatic animals need to orient efficiently through their volumetric habitats to exploit resources and avoid adverse conditions or predators. Indeed, being able to learn, remember and re-use information about local environments is key to their success. Despite this, we do not know how aquatic animals such as fish, or in fact how any animal learns and remembers information about volumetric environments. In comparison to a surface, the amount of information contained in a volume is massively increased. Artificial intelligence systems and humans find orienting through volumes extremely difficult, how then do animals such as fish cope? In relation to terrestrial habitats, aquatic environments have an extra available cue that could aid three-dimensional orientation - hydrostatic pressure. This cue could provide information about the vertical axis of space, either by allowing a fish to work out exactly where it is in the water column, or by giving compass-like information - telling a fish which way is up and down. We aim to discover whether fish can use hydrostatic pressure to orient, and what type of information it gives. Fish are known to be able to perceive small incremental changes in hydrostatic pressure, and a number of potential receptive mechanisms have been found. It therefore seems highly likely that fish have adapted to use this cue that is unique to aquatic systems as a way of coping with the unique problems associated with finding their way around a volumetric environment. In this project, we aim to find out whether fish use hydrostatic pressure to orient vertically, and if so how this cue is used. We will test whether fish use other potential vertical cues such as light, and distance to the surface, to determine whether one cue type is preferred (maybe pressure, as it is ever-present and usable at night or in conditions where visibility is poor), and whether there is redundancy in the cue-use system. We will build on this to consider orientation through three-dimensions, and whether fish orient using different mechanisms when in landmark-rich versus landmark-poor environments. Is pressure always the preferred cue as it is always available, or can the use of landmarks improve precision in orientation? Finally, we will consider orientation through a full volume, and whether fish can encode distance and direction within such a complex 3D space, or whether errors occur in either the horizontal or vertical dimensions. In other words, we aim to work out how fish learn and remember the features and cues of their volumetric habitat, so as to make the correct directional choices when they have to get somewhere in a hurry.
3/6 complete
Imported from UKRI Gateway to Research | Grant 1E460345-2603-4404-984A-00B2B5ECD274.
Open sourceOverview
Grant agreement 1E460345-2603-4404-984A-00B2B5ECD274
Open sourceUnlike most terrestrial environments, aquatic systems are volumes through which animals can move in all directions; up and down as well as side to side. Aquatic animals need to orient efficiently through their volumetric habitats to exploit resources and avoid adverse conditions or predators. Indeed, being able to learn, remember and re-use information about local environments is key to their success. Despite this, we do not know how aquatic animals such as fish, or in fact how any animal learns and remembers information about volumetric environments. In comparison to a surface, the amount of information contained in a volume is massively increased. Artificial intelligence systems and humans find orienting through volumes extremely difficult, how then do animals such as fish cope? In relation to terrestrial habitats, aquatic environments have an extra available cue that could aid three-dimensional orientation - hydrostatic pressure. This cue could provide information about the vertical axis of space, either by allowing a fish to work out exactly where it is in the water column, or by giving compass-like information - telling a fish which way is up and down. We aim to discover whether fish can use hydrostatic pressure to orient, and what type of information it gives. Fish are known to be able to perceive small incremental changes in hydrostatic pressure, and a number of potential receptive mechanisms have been found. It therefore seems highly likely that fish have adapted to use this cue that is unique to aquatic systems as a way of coping with the unique problems associated with finding their way around a volumetric environment. In this project, we aim to find out whether fish use hydrostatic pressure to orient vertically, and if so how this cue is used. We will test whether fish use other potential vertical cues such as light, and distance to the surface, to determine whether one cue type is preferred (maybe pressure, as it is ever-present and usable at night or in conditions where visibility is poor), and whether there is redundancy in the cue-use system. We will build on this to consider orientation through three-dimensions, and whether fish orient using different mechanisms when in landmark-rich versus landmark-poor environments. Is pressure always the preferred cue as it is always available, or can the use of landmarks improve precision in orientation? Finally, we will consider orientation through a full volume, and whether fish can encode distance and direction within such a complex 3D space, or whether errors occur in either the horizontal or vertical dimensions. In other words, we aim to work out how fish learn and remember the features and cues of their volumetric habitat, so as to make the correct directional choices when they have to get somewhere in a hurry.