desert antsI collaborate with Rüdiger Wehner of the Department of Neurobiology, University of Zurich on research on desert ants. The species are Cataglyphis fortis in Tunisia, and Melophorus bagoti in Central Australia.
Wehner has established and run a field research station in Tunisia for over 30 years. The subject of research has been various species of the desert ant, genus Cataglyphis. Much about the navigational behaviour of these ants is known as a result of the very fruitful work of Wehner and his collaborators. But of course much more remains to be researched.
Recently, we have also begun to investigate an Australian desert ant located in Central Australia. Known as the red honey ant (pictured here), Melophorus bagoti shares many characteristics with Cataglyphis. It is long-legged, active in the heat of the day, and moves fast. But their ecology differs somewhat from that of Cataglyphis's. The deserts of Central Australia are richer in plant life, making it easier for M. bagoti to find dead insects for food. We are interested in comparing the navigational behaviours of Melophorus with those of Cataglyphis. At present, almost nothing is known about the behaviour of Melophorus.
Ajay Narendra recently completed his Ph.D. studying navigation in Melophorus bagoti.
My experiments on honeybees have investigated how the foragers find a rewarding place. Past work focussed on the theme of the mechanisms by which honeybees find a place. Current research focuses on the topic of how the worker retrieves the correct memory of a place and whether and how multiple memories are integrated.
learning and face perception in humansI have an ongoing collaboration with Marcia Spetch of the Department of Psychology, University of Alberta. We have been investigating a number of topics in spatial and temporal cognition in pigeons and humans. A recent story on spatial cognition is linked below. Currently, we are investigating various distortions in the recognition of faces arising from particular learning experiences. Students and colleagues have been collaborators, including Colin Clifford of the School of Psychology, University of Sydney.
Clark's nutcrackersThe Clark's nutcracker has a prolific spatial memory. The bird lives in the Rocky Mountains of North America, and stores a lot of food, mostly pine seeds. It relies on its stored caches for sustenance over winter. It can remember thousands of caches for months. Alan Kamil and Russell Balda have done many studies on this bird. We now know that they use landmarks to remember and retrieve their caches. We want to figure out how they use landmarks.
crab spiders and
beesI collaborated with Astrid Heiling and Mariella Herberstein of the Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, on the study of signal interactions between crab spiders, flowers, and bees, which are potential prey for spiders. Crab spiders may lure bees deceptively with their body coloration, to the detriment of the bees.
In spatial generalisation, a worker is trained to find food in a container at one location. After sufficient training, she is presented a container at various locations, including the training location. The question at stake is: how should the animal 'bet' on whether the container at each location has food or not. See the link for some answers.
In experiments on self control, the forager is presented with two choices of rewards. One is immediately available but is small. The other reward is larger, but the forager has to wait some time for it. Waiting for a larger reward is technically called self control, lack of which is often a nemesis in human behaviour. Bees show a good deal of self control.
Marcia Spetch and I have recently published a substantial story on spatial cognition in university students, investigating spatial generalisation and peak shift. Students were presented marked locations on a computer screen, and had to bet whether it was the rewarding 'hot' spot.
Two colleagues in my own Department, Chris Evans and Peter Wenderoth, and I studied the perception of bilateral symmetry in complex stimuli in humans. Bilateral symmetry means mirror symmetry. It is often an attractive property in mate selection. We studied in human subjects the perception of symmetry in complex, naturalistic objects.
Chris Evans and I have been exploring this topic 'on the back burner' for a number of years. The idea is to present virtual flowers, generated on computer to real bees. Each flower contains the same reward, but the bees get to choose which flower to land on and get their sugar water from. The virtual aspect makes it possible to manipulate key parameters in evolution, such as costs in producing flowers. It also speeds up the 'evolutionary' process, making generations go by in days. We think that this makes a great project for an interested graduate student.
Chris Evans and I, with the help of programmer Mark Nettle, developed semi-automatic software for tracking small moving objects, presumably animals. The routine is based on NIH's Image software. The package is in a usable but not all bebugged state. Please email me if you are interested.
Catherine Prabhu: studying memory in honeybees
Dinesh Rao (co-supervised by Marie Herberstein and Ken Cheng): studying predator-prey interactions between bees and spiders
Andros Hoan: studying human learning and memory
I am launching a new and exciting course this year, Introduction to Brain, Behaviour, and Evolution. A brief description:
A course introducing an integrative approach to the amazing world of animal behaviour, including human behaviour. Basic mechanisms as well as function and evolution are discussed. The course follows and builds on BIOL 108, Human Biology, examining a good number of specialised systems of natural behaviour, each in a single species in case study fashion. Topics include prey localisation in barn owls, mate calling in crickets, simple reflex systems in sea slugs, spatial navigation in rats, and the course culminates with some reflections on the lives of humans in our modern world.
I also teach animal learning and cognition in first- and second-year courses. And I contribute to a third-year course on animal behaviour run by Chris Evans.