Animals constantly process environmental information to carry out routine activities such as locating food, selecting habitat, recognizing mates, finding prey and avoiding predators in ways that maximize fitness. Sensory organs (eyes, antenna, brain etc.) which are central in retrieving and processing this information, can shape animal lifestyles. However, investing in sensory traits is extremely costly, thus, an organism should not invest in these traits more than necessary.
The project we propose here will investigate the evolution of eye size and shape across European butterflies. Some specific questions we want to address are – To what extent the evolution of eye size and shape is conserved or labile? Which ecological factors shape the evolution of these traits? The project will employ state-of-the-art 3D morphometrics to quantify eye size and shape and will use phylogenetic comparative methods to analyse the data. We already have obtained 3D scans of the 60 butterflies (~450 individuals) and the pipeline for processing these scans is already established.
The task of the student will be to use these scans to quantify 3D eye surface area and eye shape for these butterflies and explore evolutionary patterns using comparative analyses. Both supervisors (Sridhar Halali and Niklas Wahlberg) have expertise in analyzing 3D scans and phylogenetic analyses and will train the student. You will have plenty of scope to develop and implement your own ideas. Overall, you will gain experience in visualizing and analysing 3D data (which is a transferable skill), phylogenetic comparative methods and will learn about butterfly evolutionary ecology, systematics and evolutionary theory.
Contact: If interested, please send email to Sridhar Halali, sridhar.halali@biol.lu.se or Niklas Wahlberg niklas.wahlberg@biol.lu.se
We will be extremely happy to discuss about the project and show you some cool 3D scans.