How do predators cope with chemically defended prey?
from Morandi-Raikova & Mayer 2020
“The ‘tenacity of life’ so characteristic of the warningly coloured lepidoptera on which [predators] feed, is to some extent also apparent in the vertebrate predators that attack them and appears to indicate a rather widespread phenomenon which is by no means understood.”
We seek to understand the neuronal circuits and associated genetic, cellular, and molecular mechanisms that explain how animals perceive and respond to visual and chemical signals.
We take a multidisciplinary approach that encompasses both proximate (mechanistic) and ultimate (evolutionary) perspectives. Our work includes mapping neuronal activity on the basis of immediate early gene products, measuring physiological responses to consuming toxins, investigating how the social environment affects an individual’s behaviour, performing evolutionary analyses of the Na+K+ATPase gene family, and functional characterisation of Na+K+-ATPase mutations (in vitro).
Publications
Protti Sánchez, F., Mayer, U., Rowland, H.M., Naive domestic chicks show an innate avoidance of red foods and a preference for the shape of green frogs. Journal of Animal Cognition. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-023-01821-x
Protti-Sánchez, F., Corrales Parrada, C. D., Mayer, U., Rowland, H. M. Activation of the nucleus taeniae of the amygdala by umami taste in domestic chicks (Gallus gallus). Frontiers in Physiology 824. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2022.897931
Mohammadi, S., Özdemir, H. I., Ozbek, P., Sumbul, F., Stiller, J., Deng, J., Crawford, A. J., Rowland, H. M., Storz, J. F., Andolfatto, P., Dobler, S. Epistatic effects between amino acid insertions and substitutions mediate toxin-resistance of vertebrate Na+,K+-ATPases. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 39, msac258, https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msac258