About us
|
Our group studies the neural mechanisms underlying spatial memory in insects. As central place foragers, honeybees begin their foraging trip at a fixed location, i.e., their nest. This site fidelity makes spatial memory relevant to the bee's survival. We seek to understand what happens in the brain when a bee acquires or retrieves spatial memory. We study the brain and the behavior simultaneously, by combining behavioral with neurophysiological approaches. In addition, with intracellular recordings from spatially tuned neurons followed by dye injections, we trace the recorded neuron and dissect the neural circuits that are relevant for spatial memory.
|
|
Our research philosophy
|
As Neuroethologists, we get inspired by observing animals in the field. This means that the behavior, we are interested in, dictates which species we are working with. Due to the long history of beekeeping, we know quite a lot about honeybees and their natural behavior. For example, we can train honeybees to feeders that are hundreds of meters away from the hive. In addition, observational hives allow us to observe the bees inside the hive by using infrared-sensitive cameras. Most importantly, successful foragers returning home from their foraging trip often perform a waggle dance. This stereotypic dance represents a symbolic communication with which foragers share spatial information about food places with their conspecifics.
|
Funding
|
Our research is kindly funded by the Emmy Noether-Programm from the German Research Council (DFG)
|
|
You can find us hereAddress
Beetz Lab Chair of Behavioral Physiology & Sociobiology Biocenter Am Hubland 97074 Würzburg, Germany [email protected] Phone +49931 3184528 |