When lost in the desert at night, or in dense forests, people tend to walk in circles. This is because the seemingly simple act of walking in a straight line involves a complex interplay of various sensory modalities, the motor system and cognition. Many insects released in the same type of uncharted territory, does not walk in circles, but rather keeps steadfastly to a chosen bearing. The main goal of this project has been to unravel the sensory and neuronal architecture of the newly discovered ‘snapshot compass’ of the beetles, that supports orientation over all continents and terrestrial habitats on earth (except Antarctica). This goal is realized through a fusion of biology, bio-informatics and mathematics.
A quickly growing pool of studies indicates that neuronal networks are modulated in a context-dependent manner. Therefore, to truly understand how the tiny compasses of insects works, and to formulate the core computational algorithms underlying these remarkable systems, I have in this project aimed and succeeded to obtain the first ever brain recordings from the compass of a freely orienting insect. Only in an animal with a robust orientation behaviour, strong enough to carry a little backpack of electronics could it be possible to do this. Luckily, the large dung-beetles, with their easily manipulated orientation behavior, offered a unique opportunity to attain this holy grail of neuroethology and allowed me to achieve this goal.
Three main objectives that have been pursued over the course of this five-year project:
1) Input to the compass: To identify what celestial compass cues are extracted from different habitats, and how the sensory system is designed to support their extraction.
2) The compass at work: To characterise the neuronal principles, e.g. sensitivity, and connectivity, under-pinning the integration of compass cues in the snapshot compass system, and how these are modulated in different types of habitats and behavioural contexts.
3) A universal compass model: To formulate the core computational algorithms underlying a snapshot compass system that supports orientation in a broad range of light levels and terrestrial habitats.
While the challenge of cue integration has been solved effectively in the compass system of the beetles, it remains a key problem within the field of cognition and perception, as well as for the design of artificial intelligence systems. Exploring this topic during this five year project, we have successfully published 9 publications and 3 PhD theses concerning this topic.
