Mittagssalon | Maps of time and space – studying animal behavior in the real world

The ability to predict the future and plan is one of the most important human characteristics. Many researchers suggest that episodic memory – one of our most important human attributes has evolved to enable this. 

Recent research indicates that animals might also be able to map their world and plan ahead accordingly, but this is extremely difficult to study in naturally behaving animals in the wild. In the past decade, we have developed miniature GPS loggers that allow tracking small animals in their natural environment. This enabled us to study fruit-bats, organisms with remarkable temporal-spatial memory, over very long periods in the wild. Our continuous tracking suggests that bats map both space and time and adjust future behavior based on previous events. We were moreover able to use computer simulations and artificial neural networks to suggest how insect-eating bats can build large spatial maps of their environment based on the acoustics only and to learn to navigate from scratch. These findings reveal new insight into how the brain maps the world (both time and space). They shed new light into animal cognition under natural conditions and pave the way for better conservation decisions. 

Yossi Yovel, School of Zoology, Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel-Aviv University