OUR RESEARCH GROUPHaving knowledge about where am I and where I would like to go is a major ability for any animal to survive. Insects, even though they only exhibit a tiny brain, show astonishing abilities in spatial orientation and compass navigation. In our group at the Department of Animal Physiology at the NTNU in Trondheim (Norway), we are interested in understanding compass orientation in insects. We use a variety of techniques, ranging from behavioral, neuroanatomical, to electrophysiological methods.
OUR MODEL ORGANISMEvery year in autumn, a certain generation of monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) starts a long journey from North America to their overwintering habitats in Central Mexico. Even though these animals have never been to Central Mexico, they seem to know exactly how they reach the same trees that their ancestors have used for overwintering. How an animal, that has a brain that is even smaller than a grain of rice, is able to perform such a navigation over more than 4,500 km is one of the most enigmatic scientific questions.
OUR RESEARCH AIMSOur research group aims at understanding the fundamental behavioral and neural mechanisms of the insect orientation, with a particular focus on monarch butterfly migration. What kind of cues do they use, how do they combine these cues with other modalities, such as time-of-day-information, and how are these signals combined in their brain are central aspects of our research.
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OUR METHODS
The routes of the monarch butterflies' migration (from Merlin and Liedvogel (2019), J Exp Biol).
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