Fine-scale navigation: how insects perform systematic searches

• Applicant: Dr. Patrick Schultheiss
• Subject Area: Sensory and Behavioural Biology
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 499479766

Navigation is of crucial importance for the survival of many animal species. To guarantee the successful completion of a journey, insects engage in very efficient systematic searches for finally pinpointing their target. The resulting search patterns are highly structured – systematic – while retaining strong levels of adaptive flexibility. It remains unclear how the sophisticated behaviour underlying systematic search is generated by the insect central nervous system. Our current knowledge suggests that this involves the integration of several distinct steering mechanisms in the insect brain. This project aims to provide a mechanistic understanding of systematic searching behaviour in ants. First, I will explore the presence of innate movement routines. I will then test experimentally how ants perceive and memorise visual navigation cues in their environment, and how individual sensory experience modulates searching movements. Finally, chemical lesions of targeted brain tissues will provide insights into the neural architecture that generates systematic searches. As a whole, these findings will reveal whether highly sophisticated systematic searching behaviour is generated by the interplay of innate movement routines and navigational modules, and how these routines interact with external cues. More broadly, the outcomes of this project thus allow us to ask questions of fundamental importance about how brains work to produce adaptive behaviour.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants