The International Research Fellowship Program enables U.S. scientists and engineers to conduct three to twenty-four months of research abroad. The program's awards provide opportunities for joint research, and the use of unique or complementary facilities, expertise and experimental conditions abroad.
This award will support a twenty-two-month research fellowship by Dr. Damian O. Elias to work with Dr. Andrew C. Mason at the University of Toronto and with Dr. Wayne P. Maddison at the University of British Columbia, in Canada.
The complexity of natural environments presents an overwhelming diversity of potential stimuli. Information from multiple sensory inputs must be integrated within the nervous system in order for an organism to navigate its environment. Neural mechanisms of sensory integration have evolved to reflect the adaptive significance of competing stimuli, and explaining sensory integration therefore requires a thorough understanding of the function of behavioral responses. The PI and his hosts will study multimodal communication in jumping spiders of the genus Habronattus using behavioral, phylogenetic and information theoretic techniques. Multimodal communication (communication using two or more sensory modalities) represents a context in which multi-sensory integration can be clearly linked with a specific behavioral function, and therefore provides an ideal system to study sensory integration. Studying the evolution of multimodal communication will provide insights into the processes that drive the integration of multiple inputs which will, in turn, guide the analysis of neural function to uncover fundamental mechanisms underlying sensory integration and communication. They are studying communication in different species of Habronattus that use multimodal signaling to varying degrees in male courtship displays. Mate choice experiments along with quantitative measurements of male signals allow them to evaluate existing hypotheses on the function multimodal signals and therefore the significance of specific mechanisms of sensory integration. Using phylogenetic techniques and computational models they are empirically testing hypotheses on the evolution of greater signal complexity as well as testing the hypothesis that greater signal complexity leads to more rapid species diversification.
This project can bridge the gap between describing the complexity of a communication system, understanding the system's role in sexual selection and understanding the evolutionary pressures that may increase system complexity.
