Robin Grob, PhD
Postdocteral Fellow |
RESEARCH INTERESTMy research aims to understand how insect navigators use and integrate different environmental cues to stay on track. I started working on this question in Wolfgang Rössler’s lab (Julius Maximilians University, Würzburg, Germany). During my doctoral studies in the Graduate School of Life Sciences (Würzburg, Germany), I investigated how desert ants (Cataglyphis) set up and calibrate their navigational systems, before venturing out into far-reaching foraging trips. I established a combination of state-of-the-art neurobiological methods and behavioral essays in the ants’ natural habitats in Greece and Tunisia. With this truly neuroethological approach, I studied the magnetic compass that guides the ants during their very first excursions outside the nest and the Hebbian and homeostatic plasticity that prepares and adapts the ant brain for the new challenges ahead.
During my postdoc in Basil el Jundi’s lab (NTNU, Trondheim, Norway) I study the orientation behavior of the monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus). By combining behavioral, anatomical, and electrophysiological approaches, I aim to better understand how the butterfly integrates different sensory modalities to stay on course even during their long overwintering migration from North America to Central Mexico. I am especially interested in the interaction of the time-compensated sun compass and the magnetic compass of the butterflies. |
SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION
APPLIED TECHNIQUES
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Curriculum Vitae |
PUBLICATIONS
- Rössler, W., Grob, R., Fleischamnn, P. N. (early online). The role of learning-walk related multisensory experience in rewiring visual circuits in the desert ant brain. J Comp Physiol A. doi: 10.1007/s00359-022-01600-y
- Grob, R., el Jundi, B. (2023) Insect navigation: Where to face when moving through space. Curr. Biol. 33, R100–R103. [Dispatch]
- Fleischmann, P. N., Grob, R., Rössler, W. (2022). Magnetosensation during re‑learning walks in desert ants (Cataglyphis nodus). J Comp Physiol A 208, 125–133.
- Grob, R., Holland Cunz, O., Grübel, K., Pfeifer, K., Rössler, W.*, Fleischmann, P. N.* (2022). Rotation of skylight polarization during learning walks is necessary to trigger neuronal plasticity in Cataglyphis ants. Proc. Royal Soc. B. 289: 20212499.
- Grob, R., Heinig, N., Grübel, K.,.Rössler, W., Fleischmann, P. N (2021). Sex-specific and caste-specific brain adaptations related to spatial orientation in Cataglyphis ants. J. Comp. Neurol. 529:18, 3882–3892. doi: 10.1002/cne.25221.
- Grob, R., el Jundi, B., Fleischmann, P. N. (2021). Towards a common terminology for arthropod spatial orientation. Ethol. Ecol. Evol. 33:3, 338–358.
- Grob, R., Tritscher, C., Grübel, K., Stigloher, C., Groh, C., Fleischmann, P. N., Rössler, W. (2021). Johnston’s organ and its central projections in Cataglyphis desert ants. J. Comp. Neurol. 529, 2138–2155.
- Fleischmann, P. N., Grob, R., and Rössler, W. (2020). Kompass im Kopf - Wie Wüstenameisen lernen heimzukehren (Ant compass – how desert ants learn to navigate). Biol. Unsere Zeit 2/2020:50, 100–109. [popular scientific article].
- Fleischmann, P. N., Grob, R., and Rössler, W. (2020). Magnetoreception in Hymenoptera: importance for navigation. Animal Cognition. 23:6, 1051-1061. .
- Grob, R., Fleischmann, P. N., and Rössler, W. (2019). Learning to navigate – how desert ants calibrate their compass systems. Neuroforum. doi: 10.1515/nf-2018-0011.
- Fleischmann, P.N.*, Grob, R.*, Müller, V. L., Wehner, R., and Rössler, W. (2018). The Geomagnetic Field Is a Compass Cue in Cataglyphis Ant Navigation. Curr. Biol. 28 :9, 1440–1444.
- Grob, R.*, Fleischmann, P. N.*, Grübel, K., Wehner, R., and Rössler, W. (2017). The Role of celestial compass information in Cataglyphis ants during learning walks and for neuroplasticity in the central complex and mushroom bodies. Front. Behav. Neurosci. 11:226.
- Fleischmann, P. N., Grob, R., Wehner, R., and Rössler, W. (2017). Species-specific differences in the fine structure of learning walk elements in Cataglyphis ants. J. Exp. Biol. 220, 2426–2435.