Insect spatial learning, a stroll through Tinbergen’s four questions.

Antoine Wystrach (1)

1 CRCA - Centre de Recherches sur la Cognition Animale - UMR5169

Insects display a large array of spatial behaviors, from maggots tracking fruit scents on the floor to bees visiting sequences of flowers over kilometers. Here we will explore the proximal and ultimate causes of these behaviors through Tinbergen's four questions, with a special emphasis on learning. First we will focus on the ontogeny of spatial behaviors through the life of an ant forager. Growing from naïve to expert navigator requires multiple steps and great plasticity. However, learning too fast is rarely the best option and we will see, notably with parasitoid wasps, that the dynamics of learning speed and memory are finely tuned to fit a species' ecologically relevant tasks, that is, their ultimate function. We will then dive into the neural mechanisms underlying spatial learning, especially two key areas of the brain: the mushroom bodies and the central complex. This will enable us to compare insect species across the phylogenetic tree and ask how a large diversity of spatial behaviors can result from such similar brains. Part of the solution lays in the design of insect brains, which facilitate the emergence of new adaptive behaviors across evolutionary time as well as within an individual's life.

Domaines: Sciences cognitives; Sciences du Vivant [q-bio]

Antoine Wystrach. Insect spatial learning, a stroll through Tinbergen’s four questions.. Elsevier Reference Module in Life Sciences, Elsevier, 2018. ⟨hal-02370648⟩