Stentiford, Rachael

Honeybees are remarkable navigators, capable of locating food sources several kilometers away from the hive and returning reliably despite having tiny brains (on the order of 1 million neurons) and low-resolution visual systems. Honeybees also communicate spatial information to nestmates through the waggle dance in which a forager advertises the direction and distance of a profitable food source.

In my project, I investigate the neural mechanisms underlying spatial memory in honeybees. The waggle dance provides a unique opportunity to study spatial memory, because it directly links behavior, communication, and navigation. To do so, I will record neural activity from the brain of tethered flying bees while they acquire and retrieve spatial memory. Using a flight simulator, I present behaviorally relevant orientation cues while monitoring neural activity, allowing us to investigate how spatial memories guiding navigation are represented in the bee brain.