GEE SEMINAR SERIES

Dear All

The speaker for the next seminar is Dr Stephen Montgomery.  

This seminar is open to all regardless of career stage. Please share details with colleagues, wider networks and those who may be interested.

Location: G01 Lankester LT, Medawar Building
Host: Rahia Mashoodh

Please email Rahia if you would like a one to one with Stephen.

Title: Adaptive expansion of learning and memory circuits in a long-lived butterfly

Short abstract: How animals perceive, process and respond to environmental cues is tightly tuned to the species-specific demands imposed by their ecology and life history. This specialisation is likely reflected in neural systems that support cognitive processes, as well as the behaviours expressed by those systems. In Heliconius butterflies the mushroom bodies - insect learning and memory centers - are significantly expanded relative to all other butterflies, an adaptation that was coincident with the evolution of a novel dietary shift towards active pollen feedinglong-term spatial memory of floral resources. I will discuss evidence that selection for trap-line foraging has reshaped Heliconius cognition along specific lines, reflected in both neuroanatomical specialisations and shifts in a restricted range of cognitive traits. I will also present some preliminary developmental work suggests these changes are partly achieved by innovations of new progenitor cell, which expand neuron production in the context of otherwise conserved development and life histories.

Brief Bio: Stephen is an Associate Professor in Evolutionary Neurobiology and Behaviour at the School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol. His research group is interested in how brains evolve to produce behavioural and ecological diversity. To try to understand these links, we combine a range of approaches, including behaviour and ecology, neuroanatomy and development, and comparative genomics.

Thank you