Figure 8. Plume contacts are intermittent and on average are correlated with a reduction in the speed of freely behaving animals. A, Trajectories of multiple animals over different trials during a 2-s period before and after plume contacts for a single ethanol-source location are presented showing that the plume contacts are intermittent and guided by turbulence (left). The color of the trajectories corresponds to the log of the deconvolved ethanol signal (see Materials and Methods). For comparison, equal time-sized trajectories, randomly selected during the non-plume-contact portion of the trials, are presented (right). B, The body speed profile, denoted by the color, peri-plume contacts are presented for the trajectories shown in A. Black plus sign is the beginning of the trajectory while the white circle denotes the position at the time of the threshold crossings signifying plume contacts (left). For the randomized (right) case, the black plus sign again denotes the start of the trajectory while the white circle is the position at the middle of the time window. C, Heatmaps of the log of the deconvolved ethanol signal (Ci), head speed (Cii), and the body speed (Ciii) centered around the time of plume contact (dashed white line) sorted by the distance from the source at the time of contact reveal the decrease in the head and body speeds on plume contacts. For comparison, the randomized heatmaps during the non-plume-contact portion of the trajectories are also presented. Colormap for Ci corresponds with the colormap in A, while colormaps for Cii, Ciii correspond with the colormap in B. D, Mean ± SEM from multiple contacts over different trials and animals, shown in C, are presented for the deconvolved ethanol signal (i), head speed (ii), and the body speed (iii), showing clear reduction in the mean head and body speed on plume contact.