Project description
Exploring how information spreads through insect societies
The BeeDanceGap project, funded by the European Research Council, seeks to tap into the enormous complexity of honeybee societies in order to understand how information flows through one of the most complex communication systems in the animal kingdom. The foraging workforce of a honeybee colony is orchestrated via the celebrated “dance language,” which provides an information network to control which bees are allocated to which resources. By using transcriptomics and network-based modelling techniques, researchers aim to explore how this communication controls decisions made by individual bees, and how these scale up to produce colonies that behave as an efficient collective.
Objective
Learning from others is fundamental to ecological success across the animal kingdom, but a key theme to emerge from recent research is that individuals respond differently to social information. Understanding this diversity is an imposing challenge, because it is hard to replicate the overwhelming complexity of free-living groups within controlled laboratory conditions. Yet here I propose that one of the most complex social models that we know of— the sophisticated eusocial societies of honeybees— offer unrivaled and yet unrecognized potential to study social information flow through a natural group. The honeybee “dance language” is one of the most celebrated communication systems in the animal world, and central to a powerful information network that drives our most high-profile pollinator to food, but bee colonies are uniquely tractable for two reasons. Firstly, next-generation transcriptomics could allow us to delve deep into this complexity at the molecular level, on a scale that is simply not available in vertebrate social systems. I propose to track information flow through a natural group using brain gene expression profiles, to understand how dances elicit learning in the bee brain. Secondly, although bee foraging ranges are vast and diverse, social learning takes place in one centralized location (the hive). The social sciences now offer powerful new tools to analyze social networks, and I will use a cutting-edge network-based modelling approach to understand how the importance of social learning mechanisms shifts with ecology. In the face of global pollinator decline, understanding the contribution of foraging drivers to colony success has never been more pressing, but the importance of the dance language reaches far beyond food security concerns. This research integrates proximate and ultimate perspectives to produce a comprehensive, multi-disciplinary program; a high-risk, high-gain journey into new territory for understanding animal communication.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences computer and information sciences software
- natural sciences biological sciences ecology
- natural sciences biological sciences zoology entomology apidology
- agricultural sciences agriculture, forestry, and fisheries agriculture industrial crops fodder
- natural sciences biological sciences molecular biology
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Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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H2020-EU.1.1. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
ERC-STG - Starting Grant
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2014-STG
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
TW20 0EX EGHAM
United Kingdom
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.