Young, C. M.*; Vazquez, E.: How carnivorous deep-sea ascidians catch their prey. Two new species of carnivorous deep-sea octacnemid ascidians have recently been discovered at bathyal depths in the Bahamas, one in the genus Dicopia and one in the genus Kaikoja. Analysis of gut contents indicates that both species consume mostly small crustaceans, though we […]

TURINGAN, R.G.: Functional and morphological bases of prey-capture performance in marine-fish larvae. A critical period, marked by a rapid decline in population size, occurs immediately following yolk-absorption during the larval phase of marine teleosts. Biotic and abiotic factors associated with mortality during this critical period have been identified, but the causal link between these factors […]

Tarsitano, M. *; Dickinson, M.: Visual-Olfactory Fusion in the Flight Behavior of Drosophila Food is often associated with odor, so olfaction is an important sense which animals use to guide them to food. Course control in insects, however, is strongly influenced by visual cues. We are testing Drosophila to see how the visual algorithms they […]

TAMMERO,L.F.*; DICKINSON,M.H.: The Pattern of Optic Flow Determines Flight Behavior in Freely Flying Drosophila While flying through its environment in search of food, a fruitfly (Drosophila) must integrate input from several sensory modalities. To study the behavioral patterns that emerge from the interactions of these sensory systems, we reconstructed three-dimensional trajectories from images taken by […]

THEOBALD, J.C.*; O’CARROLL, D.: Neural strategies that optimize motion detection in the crepuscular hawkmoth Manduca sexta Perhaps the greatest demand on visual system design occurs with the transition from day to night, since illuminance can differ by a factor of 108. For an animal to function in darker conditions, its visual system must deal with […]

FRYE, M.A.*; DANIEL, T.L.: Mechanical encoding properties of the wing hinge stretch receptor in the hawkmoth Insect flight emerges from complex interactions among patterned motor output, musculoskeletal mechanics, aerodynamic and inertial forces, and neural feedback. In the hawkmoth Manduca sexta, feedback from a wing hinge stretch receptor (SR) is crucial for the visuo-motor control of […]

SCOTT, M.P.: Hormonally-Mediated Cues for Mate Recognition by Burying Beetles Individual recognition of a mate or a past enemy has seldom been demonstrated in invertebrates. When recognition cues have been identified, they are usually found to be based on social status or family membership. Burying beetles rear a brood on an unpredictable resource and as […]

KAATZ, I.M.: Structurally divergent sound producing mechanisms in a clade of arioid catfishes function in different behavioral contexts Of the over 400 teleost fish families, 23% are known to have evolved two or more structurally and acoustically different sound producing mechanisms (SPMs). What is the functional significance of these independently derived SPMs? Structurally different SPMs […]

HOESE, W.J.*; MOONEY, R.; NOWICKI, S.: Neural Encoding of Multiple Song Types in the Swamp Sparrow HVc Many songbirds, including swamp sparrows (Melospiza georgiana), sing multiple song types as adults. In Songbirds that sing only a single song type, such as zebra finches and white-crowned sparrows, neurons in the song nucleus HVc are song-selective, firing […]

PERRY, G.*; GARLAND, T., JR.: Lizard home ranges revisited: traditional and phylogenetic perspectives Home range (HR) is the area traversed during food gathering, mating, and other routine activities. Thus, it is an ecologically important indicator of the behavioral and resource requirements of an animal. We reevaluated the factors affecting estimates of HR area in lizards. […]