BMS Seminar: Characterizing the behavioral complexity of locomotion dynamics across scales
Friday, February 27, 2026
12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Allendale Campus
Faculty
Dr. Alasdair Hastewell
From single-celled organisms to complex multi-limbed animals, the ability of living systems to precisely and robustly control their movement in ever-changing environments is essential for survival. Recent advances in quantitative live imaging enable us to track motion at unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution. Here, we develop a computational framework that combines low-dimensional representations of the dynamics with wavelet analysis to translate these high-dimensional tracking data into interpretable models and characterize the behavioral complexity of locomotion. I will demonstrate the approach by applying it to tracking data of cilia dynamics in single-celled algae; we find a dispersion relation for the cilia oscillations, showing that the underlying behavior is intrinsically low-dimensional and physically constrained. I will then show how we can extend the framework to multi-limbed animals by using jump takeoff kinematics from 14 genera of Amazonian jumping spiders with varied morphologies. Our results suggest conserved jumping strategies and decision-making across a wide range of evolutionary distances and morphologies. More generally, the approach is applicable to a wide range of locomotion data.
Location Information
Manitou Hall (MAN 107)
10860 S Campus Dr, Allendale, MI 49401
Download parking map for the Allendale Campus
Contact Information
Catherine Miller
Hosting Department, Organization, or Business
Biomedical Sciences Department
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This event was added to the calendar by Catherine Miller (millec1@gvsu.edu) on Thursday, February 19, 2026 and was last updated on Monday, February 23, 2026 at 11:33 a.m.