The force behind neurobiological research is the wish to understand the context between animal (and humans) behavior and the function of nervous system.
The Sound Communication and Behaviour group at the Institute of Biology investigates hearing and
sound/vibration production in many different animal groups:
insects, frogs, birds and mammals. We use a variety of experimental methods from
laser measurements of eardrum vibration to
measurements from nerve fibers, from multi-microphone array recordings of bat ultrasonics to the development of infrasound apparatus to measure communications between whales.
Specific research topics include:
- Biophysics of hearing
- Directional hearing in insects studied with laser vibrometry
- How honeybees perceive their communication dances
- Neuroethology of vibration sensitivity in anurans
- Directional hearing in anurans
- Communication and hearing in birds with special reference to the degradation of acoustic information by the environment
- Insect hearing and behavior
- Bat-insect interactions
- Psychophysical investigations of bat echolocation
- Field studies of bat and whale biosonar.