Sensory processing, perception and communication in simple nervous systems.

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Animals have evolved to detect and respond appropriately to information from their environment. Information is gathered by sensory organs and processed by the nervous system to result in behavioural decisions. Discerning how animals process multiple sensory inputs under natural, noisy conditions is essential to our understanding of how this process works across species, and to the development of biomimetic technologies. I focus on neural mechanisms of information processing in sensory-guided behaviour in insects and spiders. These relatively simple models have yielded important insight into basic principals underlying sensory systems. The fly Ormia ochracea makes decisions based on limited sensory information. These flies reproduce by depositing larvae on crickets where they develop as parasites. Female flies are able to exploit crickets when they hear and home in on their songs. I examine how the flies are able to accomplish this task. Ormia ears are insensitive to most differences in sound quality and register only the location of cricket songs. By studying how the central nervous system (CNS) responds to changes in the timing of cricket songs, I will identify principles that enable a simple nervous system to discriminate multiple sound sources on the basis of limited information. Basic-science data from these studies support efforts to develop miniature microphones based on Ormia ears. I also investigate sensory processing in animal communication. Communication also involves behavioural decisions based on sensory information, but in this case one animal creates signals that have evolved to directly transmit information to others. My research examines all stages in this process: how signals are generated; what information they carry; how they propagate between sender and receiver; how information is detected and encoded by the receiver. I do this work in a range of spider and insect taxa. This approach allows me to address how complex behaviours, particularly communication, evolve, and how the structure and function of the nervous system is related to specific behavioural capacities and environmental constraints.