Univesity of Maryland: Department of Biology

ADAM SMITH 

Research:  Essentially, I spend most of my time trying to comprehend how communication in animals influences their evolutionary histories, and how we can use our knowledge of this topic to further understand the forces that have shaped the evolution of the brain. To this end, I've decided to focus most of my attention on Malawian cichlid fishes. As it just so happens, these fishes make an excellent model for asking questions regarding both the evolution of sensory systems and signalling behaviors, which makes them ideal for studies of communication.

At the moment, I'm attempting to dissect female visual responses into three separate, but intimately related, levels. I am profiling visual sensitivities at the genetic (based on opsin sequence and expression), "early neural" (assayed via techniques such as ERG), and "whole brain" (behavioral output) levels in order to determine where inter- and intraspecific variation is likely to exist. Thereby, we may eventually be able to verify which level is most likely involved in assortative mating and, consequently, species divergence via sexual selection.