Do pre-adaptations to climate change exist in current insect populations?

Climate change is one imminent problem disrupting our ecosystem and affecting its living organisms, with a very strong impact on the various insect populations. We therefore aim to understand if innate olfactory behaviour of vinegar flies is a plastic trait that differs among individuals and would allow them to cope with the consequences of climate change. We will begin our study of adaptive plasticity with a large-scale screening to select single flies that exhibit an altered odour preference for attractive and aversive odours. We will then evaluate the impact of elevated concentration of O₃ and NO_x on individual olfactory preferences in adult flies. Finally, we will link the altered preferences to specific patterns of odour-induced neural activity in the fly brain by investigating the underlying individual changes at the neuronal level along the olfactory circuitry.

Postdoctoral Researcher: Dr Karen Rihani (MPI-CE)

Supervision: Dr Silke Sachse (MPI-CE) Dr Bill Hansson (MPI-CE), Dr Markus Knaden (MPI-CE), Dr Sharon Hill (SLU), Dr Rickard Ignell (SLU).