Jaske, Bianca

Many insects use sky compass cues for spatial orientation and navigation. Besides unpolarized stimuli like the position of the sun, also polarized stimuli like the polarization pattern of the sky can be used for orientation. In my project I investigate the sky-compass system of bumblebees (Bombus terrestis), which is based on sky compass cues for orientation and navigation. To do so, I use extracellular recordings of compass neurons, which are located in the central complex of the brain. During recording of neuronal activity I stimulate with artificial sky compass cues, which are based on the natural sky compass.

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