The general goals of the research of Dr. Janet Leonard have been identifying and understanding the mechanisms by which animals, particularly invertebrates, are able to use behavior to respond adaptively to their environment. In order to understand how a particular behavioral strategy has evolved one must: 1) describe the behavior in detail; 2) analyze the selective pressures that may influence the behavior; and 3) describe the mechanisms that produce the behavior in order to understand how the behavior is inherited. In order to do this, Dr. Leonard uses a combination of the ethological, physiological and ecological approaches to the study of behavior. At present, working with freely-moving animals, Dr. Leonard is developing a model system for the neuroethological analysis of the physiological mechanisms responsible for the association of functionally-related behavior patterns in time and the mechanisms by which one set of behaviors is succeeded by another. This work is important because it give us a better understanding of how the nervous system governs spontaneous changes in behavioral activity.
