Publications by authors named "S David Stupski"
Article Synopsis
- The study examines how the Drosophila sechellia, a fruit-fly species that specializes in Morinda citrifolia (noni fruit), has evolved to have more olfactory sensory neurons (OSNs) compared to its relative, D. melanogaster.
- Researchers found that the increase in OSNs enhances the ability to track noni odors more effectively, despite not improving the sensitivity of the projection neurons corresponding to those OSNs.
- The findings suggest that while more sensory neurons can help in odor detection, they actually lead to reduced adaptation of projection neurons, indicating a complex relationship between neuron quantity and sensory processing.
For organisms tracking a chemical cue to its source, the motion of their surrounding fluid provides crucial information for success. Swimming and flying animals engaged in olfaction-driven search often start by turning into the direction of an oncoming wind or water current. However, it is unclear how organisms adjust their strategies when directional cues are absent or unreliable, as is often the case in nature.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFor organisms tracking a chemical cue to its source, the motion of their surrounding fluid provides crucial information for success. Swimming and flying animals engaged in olfaction driven search often start by turning into the direction of an oncoming wind or water current. However, it is unclear how organisms adjust their strategies when directional cues are absent or unreliable, as is often the case in nature.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArticle Synopsis
- Researchers studied how certain sensory neurons that detect important environmental cues have expanded in some species, particularly focusing on a fruit specialist and its close relative.
- They discovered that increased populations of noni fruit-detecting olfactory sensory neurons (OSNs) enhance the ability to track the noni odor, leading to more consistent behavior regarding the fruit.
- Despite having more OSNs, there isn't a higher sensitivity in their projection neuron partners; instead, the increased sensory pooling seems to reduce adaptation due to weakened lateral inhibition.
A key challenge for linking experiments of organisms performed in a laboratory environment to their performance in more complex environments is to determine thermal differences between a laboratory and the energetically complex terrestrial ecosystem. Studies performed in the laboratory do not account for many factors that contribute to the realized temperature of an organism in its natural environment. This can lead to modelling approaches that use experimentally derived data to erroneously link the air temperature in a laboratory to air temperatures in energetically heterogenous ecosystems.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF