Meeting Abstract

S1.4  Sunday, Jan. 4  Plenary Talk: Computational Biomechanics, Spiders, and the Sense of Senses BARTH, F.G.; University of Vienna, Vienna friedrich.g.barth@univie.ac.at

COMPUTATIONAL BIOMECHANICS,SPIDERS,AND THE SENSE OF SENSES Friedrich G. Barth,University of Vienna,Life Sciences,Department of Neurobiology and Cognition Research,Althanstr.14,1090 Vienna, Austria Despite the tiny size of their brain many arthropods show highly elaborate behavior.There is increasing evidence that one of the reasons for the existence of this seeming contradiction is a clever sensory periphery with highly selective sensory organs tuned to the specific needs of a particular behavior in a particular (noisy) species specific environment.In spiders the central nervous system (CNS) is made up of ca.10 ⁵ neurons only. The sensory cells supplying their sensors by far outnumber the neurons in the CNS.The lecture will focus on mechanosensory sensilla which in many species of spiders dominate the guidance of behavior. Much of the technical perfection and diversity of these mechanoreceptors lies in the mechanical processes characterizing the uptake and trans-formation of the adequate stimuli. To understand these processes advanced engineering tech-nologies and mathematical modelling were applied in collaboration with engineers.The sensilla presented will be tactile hairs, hairs sensitive to air flow, and cuticular strain and vibration detectors. It will be seen that the sensitivity and selectivity of these sensors to a surprisingly large extent reflect properties of behaviorally relevant spatio-temporal stimulus patterns. Although the technical refinement is of interest in its own right and a source of inspiration for the development of artificial sensors, its bio- logical significance can only be fully appreciated when the behavior and ecology of the entire organism are taken into account. Clearly, much of the answer to the question why arthropods with small brains perform so well behaviorally lies in the sophisticated matched filter properties of their sensory periphery.