100 years of neuroanatomy and new discoveries on colour vision in insects made possible with cutting-edge serial block face electronmicroscopy combined in this mini-review.
We demonstrated that smaller hawkmoths with smaller eyes resolved spatial patterns with smaller eyes resolved spatial patterns in flight just as well as larger ones with big eyes.
Hummingbird hawkmoths beat their wings faster – and unexpectedly further – to compensate for the loss in lift force upon wing damage, but still track flowers with high precision.
It was long hypothesized that the lateral dendrites of insect lamina monopolar cells integrate visual information from neighboring photoreceptor units - and thus contribute to spatial summation of visual information - a strategy nocturnal insects use to improve their visual sensitivity at night. We showed here that this is indeed the case in hawkmoths: lamina monopolar cells dynamically adjust their spatial tuning to the ambient light intensity in line with the lateral extent of their dendrites.
Flying animals require sensory feedback on changes of their body position, as well as on their distance from nearby objects. Many insects use the apparent image motion, or optic flow, which is generated as animals move through the air, to provide this information. We used flight tunnel experiments to show that hawkmoths use a similar strategy for lateral position control.
This work on hawkmoth flight performance reveals temporal adaptations of the visual system in diurnal and nocturnal hawkmoths, and how they influence their flight ability.
We show that a hawkmoth uses the same visual cues in the dorsal and ventral parts of its visual field for different tasks: flight control ventrally, and directional orientation dorsally. This dichotomy matches the prevalence of these cues in natural visual scenes.
Here we showed that the daily activity of two hawkmoth species defines how strongly they rely on either vision or olfaction for foraging - and that their brain anatomy reflects these preferences.
Our review on the sensory ecology of hawkmoth foraging.
Our Current Biology paper showing how spatial and temporal summation in the hawkmoth brain improve sensitivity in dim light.
A review on the trade-off between spatial acuity and visual sensitivty in insects (with a focus on hawkmoths)
Our recent paper on how optical and neural adaptations in 3 species of hawkmoths are adapted to their diel activity periods.
My very first paper, on the visual control of central pattern generators for box jellyfish swimming.
BIGGER IS BETTER for animal eyes, where size limits acuity and sensitivity. Yet, our study found a surprisingly egalitarian strategy for scaling eyes in hummingbird hawkmoths: differences in acuity and sensitivity are minimised across large and small eyes.
We showed that diurnal hawkmoths use inputs both from their visual system, as well as from mechanosensors in their antennae to control their position in the air when flying.
My PhD thesis on the neural adaptations for dim light vision in hawkmoths.
This paper on the anatomy of hawkmoth lamina monopolar cells reveals adaptations of these neurons for dim light vision.
A methods paper on bleaching techniques to improve 3D confocal imaging of immuno-labelled insect brains.
My master's thesis work on the encoding of communication signals in a weakly electric fish.