Sant'Anna School scientists introduce the concept of electroecology: new opportunities for bio-inspired robotics, biohybrid systems and low-energy technologies

Sant'Anna School scientists introduce the concept of electroecology: new opportunities for bio-inspired robotics, biohybrid systems and low-energy technologies

Article by Giulia Raffaele, Donato Romano and Fabian Meder published in Nature Reviews Bioengineering. Understanding how living organisms use electric fields to interact with their environment could open new frontiers for bioengineering

Electroecology: the study of the electric fields that many living organisms generate, perceive or exploit during their interactions with the surrounding environment. This is a new scientific concept that represents significant application potential. It could pave the way for major advances in bio-inspired robotics, biohybrid systems and sustainable low-energy technologies.

This is the central message of a Comment article published in Nature Reviews Bioengineering by Giulia Raffaele, Donato Romano e Fabian Meder, scientists at The BioRobotics Institute of the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa. The authors argue that naturally occurring electric fields represent a largely unexplored dimension of interactions between organisms and their environment, and that a better understanding of these phenomena could inspire a new generation of robots, sensors, energy-harvesting systems and biohybrid platforms capable of interacting with ecosystems in a more natural and efficient way.

Electric fields in ecology: a new frontier for bioengineering

Many living organisms generate and perceive electric fields as they interact with their environment. Bees, for example, exploit electrostatic interactions during pollination, while plants accumulate electric charges on the surface of their leaves through the action of wind and raindrops. These electric fields enable organisms to orient themselves, communicate, sense their surroundings and interact with other living organisms.

To date, research has focused primarily on electrophysiology-that is, the electrical signals that regulate the activity of cells and tissues. By contrast, environmental electricity and its role in ecological interactions remain largely unexplored. According to the authors, understanding how organisms generate, perceive and exploit external electric fields represents a major opportunity for bioengineering, particularly for the development of new robotic and biohybrid systems.

"The challenge is not simply to equip robots with a new type of sensor, but to rethink the way machines interact with ecosystems. From animals capable of interpreting electric signals to microbial communities that exchange electrons with their surroundings, nature demonstrates that perception, metabolism and energy can converge within the same process. This offers a guiding principle for designing biohybrid devices that are more autonomous, energy-efficient and seamlessly integrated into natural systems," says Donato Romano, Associate Professor at The BioRobotics Institute of the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies.

"The surface of plants forms one of the largest biological interfaces on our planet, yet many of the interactions taking place there remain poorly understood, especially the role of the electric charges that develop on leaf surfaces, which we investigate in our ERC-funded EpiC project. We are working to understand how to measure these 'invisible' charges and how they can be exploited in biohybrid systems, for example as a source of energy," comments Fabian Meder, Associate Professor at The BioRobotics Institute of the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies.

Publication details

Giulia Raffaele (Postdoctoral Researcher), Donato Romano (Associate Professor), Fabian Meder (Associate Professor), Electroecology for Biohybrid and Robotic Systems, Comment, Nature Reviews Bioengineering, 2026.