Past Event! Note: this event has already taken place.
Dr. Kirk Hillier
February 6, 2015 at 3:30 PM to 4:30 PM
| Location: | 4440Q Carleton Technology and Training Centre |
| Cost: | Free |
| Audience: | Anyone |
| Key Contact: | Andrew Simons |
| Contact Email: | andrew.simons@carleton.ca |
| Contact Phone: | 613-520-2600 ext. 3869 |
Sex, Drugs and Neuroethology: Decoding evolution of pheromone communication in Heliothine moths
Kirk Hillier, PhD
Professor
Department of Biology
Acadia University
Host: Yack lab
Abstract: Olfaction is perhaps the most important and ubiquitous sense among animal phyla. Though it has long been known that insects require odor stimuli to carry out basic functions such as foraging, conspeci-c identi-cation or host location, the mechanisms by which insects process such information and application of this knowledge requires considerable exploration. The focus of my research is to investigate the function of odors in insect neuroethology and the potential for applying this knowledge to insect pest management, olfactory neuroscience and the evolution of odor production and perception.
How are mixtures of odorants encoded within insect brains and what degree of variation is evident in physiology, coding and morphology between divergent species? Using neurophysiology, the effects of phylogeny and habitat can be examined to determine their infuence upon the representation of odours within the brains of a clade of economically-important moth species, the Heliothinae (aka bollworms and budworms). What are the key factors which influence response to chemicals in the environment – peripheral sensitivity, antennal lobe processing or higher order behavioural controls? How these factors are balanced dictates output at the behavioural and ultimately ecological level, and may provide signi-cant insights to insect evolution, pest management and comparative neurology across species.
Insects – Neuroethology – Pest Management