Descripción del proyecto
Información sobre la brújula del escarabajo pelotero
El escarabajo pelotero es uno de los múltiples animales que emplean una forma rudimentaria de navegación celestial para encontrar su camino a casa. Este coleóptero utiliza un método instantáneo para la orientación, lo que elimina la necesidad de depender de largos procesos para recuperar información. El objetivo del proyecto financiado con fondos europeos UltimateCOMPASS es dilucidar los procesos sensoriales y neuronales de la recién descubierta brújula instantánea del escarabajo pelotero. En el proyecto se empleará la biología, la bioinformática y las matemáticas para obtener los primeros registros cerebrales de la brújula del escarabajo pelotero grande, lo que posibilitará el desarrollo de algoritmos informáticos básicos para este sistema. El trabajo del proyecto repercutirá en el progreso de la neuroetología y otras disciplinas científicas.
Objetivo
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. A ball-rolling dung beetle 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 is unravel the sensory and neuronal architecture of the newly discovered ‘snapshot compass’, that supports orientation over all continents and terrestrial habitats on earth (except Antarctica). This goal will be 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 this compass works, and to formulate the core computational algorithms underlying this remarkable system, I aim to obtain the first ever brain recordings from the compass of a freely orienting insect. Is this possible? Certainly! But only in an animal with a robust orientation behaviour, and that is strong enough to carry a little backpack of electronics. The large dung-beetles, with their easily manipulated orientation behavior, offers a unique opportunity to attain this holy grail of neuroethology.
The beetle’s compass makes use of a large range of celestial cues, which can vary drastically in availability and strength. 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. Taken together, almost two decades of studies of the dung beetle compass system have paved the way for this timely and unique opportunity, that will impact the advancement of science well outside the field of biology.
Ámbito científico
Palabras clave
Programa(s)
Régimen de financiación
ERC-COG - Consolidator GrantInstitución de acogida
22100 Lund
Suecia