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Cited by 203Insect Pheromone Research and ControlFluid Dynamics and Turbulent FlowsWind and Air Flow Studies

Odor Landscapes in Turbulent Environments

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Celani, Antonio, Villermaux, Emmanuel, Vergassola, Massimo·2014·Physical Review X
DOI 10.1103/physrevx.4.041015
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Abstract

The olfactory system of male moths is exquisitely sensitive to pheromones emitted by females and transported in the environment by atmospheric turbulence.Moths respond to minute amounts of pheromones, and their behavior is sensitive to the fine-scale structure of turbulent plumes where pheromone concentration is detectible.The signal of pheromone whiffs is qualitatively known to be intermittent, yet quantitative characterization of its statistical properties is lacking.This challenging fluid dynamics problem is also relevant for entomology, neurobiology, and the technological design of olfactory stimulators aimed at reproducing physiological odor signals in well-controlled laboratory conditions.Here, we develop a Lagrangian approach to the transport of pheromones by turbulent flows and exploit it to predict the statistics of odor detection during olfactory searches.The theory yields explicit probability distributions for the intensity and the duration of pheromone detections, as well as their spacing in time.Predictions are favorably tested by using numerical simulations, laboratory experiments, and field data for the atmospheric surface layer.The resulting signal of odor detections lends itself to implementation with state-of-the-art technologies and quantifies the amount and the type of information that male moths can exploit during olfactory searches.

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  • Locating the source of an odour in a windy environment is a challenging control problem, where an agent must act to correct course in the face of intermittent odour signals, changing wind direction and variability in odour plume shape.

    “Locating the source of an odour in a windy environment is a challenging control problem, where an agent must act to correct course in the face of intermittent odour signals, changing wind direction and variability in odour plume shape 1,2 .”

    From Emergent behaviour and neural dynamics in artificial agents tracking odour plumes (2023) · cites this paper as [2]

  • The plume simulator does not capture some aspects of real plumes, such as the filamentous nature of plumes or the variation of whiff duration and whiff frequency as a function of distance from source.

    “However, it does not capture some aspects of real plumes, such as the filamentous nature of plumes 2 , or the variation of whiff duration and whiff frequency as a function of distance from source 69 .”

    From Emergent behaviour and neural dynamics in artificial agents tracking odour plumes (2023) · cites this paper as [2]

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Research works printed but not linked: 48

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Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Celani, A., Villermaux, E., & Vergassola, M.
Affiliations
  • The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) (IT)
  • Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
ORCID
Venue
Physical Review X
Publisher
American Physical Society (APS)
Published
2014-10-28
Volume
4
Issue
4
ISSN
2160-3308 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1103/physrevx.4.041015
OpenAlex
W2036811519
Cited by
203
References
4
Citations by year
2026: 20 · 2025: 21 · 2024: 25 · 2023: 22 · 2022: 25 · 2021: 28 · 2020: 13 · 2019: 19 · 2018: 14 · 2017: 5 · 2016: 9 · 2015: 2
FWCI
5.30
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Physical Review X (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion)
  • HAL (submittedVersion, other-oa)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
  • arXiv (Cornell University)
Funders
Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR-10-BINF-05, ANR-10)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Insect Science › Insect Pheromone Research and Control
  • Physical Sciences › Engineering › Computational Mechanics › Fluid Dynamics and Turbulent Flows
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Environmental Engineering › Wind and Air Flow Studies
Keywords
pheromone detection, male moths, atmospheric turbulence, turbulent plumes, Lagrangian transport, atmospheric surface layer

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