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  • Honeybees (partly marked) on the edge of a brood frame
Chair of Behavioral Physiology & Sociobiology

Pfeiffer, Keram

Prof. Dr. Keram Pfeiffer

Research group leader
Zoology II / Pfeiffer lab
Universität Würzburg
Biozentrum
Am Hubland
97074 Würzburg
Building: B1 (Biozentrum)
Room: D136
Phone: +49 931 31-88510
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5348-2304
Link: Pfeiffer lab
Portrait of Prof. Dr. Keram Pfeiffer

The main focus of my research is on the neuronal basis of spatial orientation in insects, specifically on sky-compass orientation. I am particularly interested in how different sky-compass signals, like the sun’s position, the polarization pattern and the color gradient of the sky are integrated and weighted, and how the processing in the brain is adjusted in the course of the day according to the changes in solar position.

  • A micro-CT-based standard brain atlas of the bumblebee. Rother, Lisa; Kraft, Nadine; Smith, Dylan B.; el Jundi, Basil; Gill, Richard J.; Pfeiffer, Keram. In Cell and Tissue Research, 386, pp. 29–45. 2021.
  • Matched-filter coding of sky polarization results in an internal sun compass in the brain of the desert locust. Zittrell, Frederick; Pfeiffer, Keram; Homberg, Uwe. In Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 117(41), pp. 25810–25817. National Academy of Sciences, 2020.
  • Receptive Fields of Locust Brain Neurons Are Matched to Polarization Patterns of the Sky. Bech, Miklós; Homberg, Uwe; Pfeiffer, Keram. In Current Biology, 24(18), pp. 2124–2129. 2014.
  • GABAergic Excitation of Spider Mechanoreceptors Increases Information Capacity by Increasing Entropy Rather than Decreasing Jitter. Pfeiffer, Keram; French, Andrew S. In Journal of Neuroscience, 29(35), pp. 10989–10994. Society for Neuroscience, 2009.
  • Coding of Azimuthal Directions via Time-Compensated Combination of Celestial Compass Cues. Pfeiffer, Keram; Homberg, Uwe. In Current Biology, 17(11), pp. 960–965. 2007.

Bachelor

Integrative Verhaltensbiologie I, Integrative Verhaltensbiologie II, Integrative Verhaltensbiologie III, Grundlagen der Humanbiologie / Teil Humanphysiologie, Übungen Humanbiologie / Teil Humanphysiologie

Master

Experimental Sociobiology, Behavioural Physiology and Sociobiology F1, Behavioural Physiology and Sociobiology F2,  Master Program "Fokus Life Science"