Sensoribehavioural integration in insects

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All animals continuously adjust their behaviours by using the information provided to them by their sensory systems.  Insects are valuable models that allow us to study how the sense of hearing participates in this process since their ears are simple yet they control behaviours crucial to their survival.  While moths use ears to detect the sonar calls of hunting bats and activate defences such as avoidance flight, katydids and crickets must coordinate bat evasion with other behaviours such as finding mates.  My laboratory measures these behaviours with videotaping and ultrasonic-recording techniques to understand how the ears of these insects are adapted to their lifestyles.  In turn, I study how certain bats have evolved techniques that can circumvent the sensory defences of their insect prey.  I use both eared (e.g., the gypsy moth) and earless (e.g., the tent caterpillar moth) species as examples of the two auditory conditions that have evolved from the hunting pressures of bats.  Since moths and butterflies have a range of ear conditions it is possible to examine the evolution of hearing and how it operates in the present-day to assist these insects in staying alive.  In addition, I am documenting the physiological and behavioural changes that happen to the sensory systems of moths no longer exposed to bats.  Determining the mechanisms whereby animals defend themselves against their predators is important to our understanding of how populations of insects, some of which are extremely destructive to humans, are controlled by natural forces.  Since most of the elements of sensory nervous systems are common to all animals, I believe that it is possible to extend my work with the simple networks of moths to the more complex systems of other insects and ultimately, to those of vertebrate sensory and motor systems.