el Jundi, Basil
Dr. Basil el Jundi
Research group leader (Emmy Noether)
Zoology II / el Jundi lab
Universität Würzburg
Biozentrum
Am Hubland
Biozentrum
Am Hubland
97074
Würzburg
Building:
B1 (Biozentrum)
Room:
D129
Phone:
+49 931 31-88567
Link:
el Jundi lab

My work aims to understand the neuronal mechanisms underlying compass orientation in insects. Currently, my main goal is to study the integration of celestial compass cues in the monarch butterfly brain. These butterflies use celestial cues as orientation reference during their annual migration from North America to Central Mexico. How are different celestial navigation cues linked in the brain? Moreover, how are these signals combined with other visual cues or modalities? To understand this, behavioral experiments (flight simulator) are combined with anatomical (confocal imaging, 3D modelling) and electrophysiological studies (intracellular and multiunit recordings).
Personal webpage of the el Jundi lab
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1.Dacke, M., Bell, A. T. A., Foster, J. J., Baird, E. J., Strube-Bloss, M. F., Byrne, M. J., and el Jundi, B. (2019) Multimodal cue integration in the dung beetle compass, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Sciences 116, 14248–14253.[ URL ]
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2.Immonen, E.-V., Dacke, M., Heinze, S., and el Jundi, B. (2017) Anatomical organization of the brain of a diurnal and a nocturnal dung beetle, Journal of Comparative Neurology 525, 1879–1908.[ URL ]
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3.el Jundi, B., Foster, J., Khaldy, L., Byrne, M., Dacke, M., and Baird, E. (2016) A Snapshot-Based Mechanism for Celestial Orientation, Current Biology 26, 1456–1462.[ URL ]
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4.el Jundi, B., Warrant, E., Byrne, M. J., Khaldy, L., Baird, E., Smolka, J., and Dacke, M. (2015) Neural coding underlying the cue preference for celestial orientation, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Sciences 112, 11395–11400.[ URL ]
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5.Homberg, U., Heinze, S., Pfeiffer, K., Kinoshita, M., and el Jundi, B. (2011) Central neural coding of sky polarization in insects, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences, The Royal Society 366, 680–687.[ URL ]