Research project The evolutionary link between brain morphology variation and behaviour

Currently, my experimental focus lies in investigating brain and behavioural evolution in three different guppy selection lines with differences in brain size (and neuron number), schooling propensity, and telencephalon size. We use these to answer questions about how brain morphology and behaviour can evolve, and the costs and benefits of such evolutionary changes. We also use these selection lines to study how pharmaceutical pollution in the aquatic environment affect different types of brains and behavioural phenotypes. For these analyses we have a battery of infrastructure to test multiple aspects of cognitive abilities, collective motion, mate choice, life-history variation and physiological parameters such as metabolic rate, swimming performance and morphological variation using advanced imaging techniques such as X-ray microscopy. In addition, I participate in a project on dogs where we study several aspects of brain, behavioural and morphological evolution across contemporary dog breeds. Again, this project use data from behavioural assays and advanced imaging techniques such as CT-scans.[n1]