Animal movements are complex patterns affected by multiple internal (e.g. cognitive or locomotor abilities) and external (e.g. environmental or social) factors whose respective contributions are challenging to evaluate. In this interdisciplinary course, students will have the opportunity to get a hands-on team-oriented research experience in animal behaviour and theoretical biology. The course will propose to develop a research question inspired by existing animal behaviour experiments and to abstract it into a model in which agents are imbued with artificial neural networks. Students will also be introduced to swarm robotics. All students with a keen interest in quantitative methods and basic research are welcome to join. Advanced or basic programming skills (knowing what functions, variables, loops and conditions are) will be helpful.

Semester: SoSe 2024