I am a behavioural physiologist/ecologist interested in how brain features and resulting cognitive abilities allow animals to respond to ecological challenges with adaptive behaviour. My work focus on designing and running experiments that integrate animal physiology, neurobiology, endocrinology, ecology and life-history to understand variation in cognitive performance among individuals and, ultimately, the evolution of cognitive abilities. My research focuses mostly on fishes and other ectotherm vertebrates. This is because of their relatively higher brain plasticity than endotherm vertebrates. Such high plasticity facilitates the detection of small-scale variation and the possibility of running experimental manipulations on individuals within the same species to study their adjustments with respect to the brain structure, cognitive abilities and resulting behaviour.
Publications (GoogleScholar); CV (ORCID)
Current research
African Cichlids
As the main component of the nervous system, the brain is the centre of information perception, processing, storage, and decision-making. Growing and maintaining neural tissue is, however, energetically costly. In humans, for instance, each brain tissue unit needs about 22 times the amount of metabolic energy used to maintain an equivalent unit of muscle tissue. Growing a brain is thus constrained by the individual’s total energy budget. There is a potential existence of an energy trade-off manifested by a selective energy investment in the brain. The depleted energy for brain use can, as a result, have some consequences for other expensive tissues and functions, e.g., the gut, liver, immunity and growth. My team and I are using a freshwater African cichlid fish, Neolamprologus pulcher, to study the trade-offs between investment in expensive tissues and cognitive abilities within species. We are combining various methods and techniques from different disciplines to unravel how and when individuals allocate energy to develop more complex brains and what are the subsequent cognitive benefits.
Project supported by an SNF Ambizione grant.
Cleaner fish
Cleaners fish, Labroides dimidiatus, are protogynous hermaphrodites. That is, all individuals start as females, and only the largest individuals eventually change sex and become males. They have hence size-based sexual dimorphism where males are relatively larger than females without further differences in body shape or colour. The population is female-biased, and they typically live in harems comprised of one male and several females, allowing thus the male to have a higher reproductive output while only a minority of females will ever change sex to become a male. Together, it suggests that males are “successful females” with higher survival and growth rates than the other females. This makes the system ideal for investigating the relationship between individual success, intelligence and brain complexity. To test this relationship, we test female and male cleaner fish in both general and ecological intelligence tasks and then explore their brain complexity. Evaluating these fish for their general and ecological intelligence allows us to disentangle whether they have a somewhat general cognitive tool kit, whether their performance is the outcome of specific ecological knowledge, or maybe they have both types of intelligence.
In collaboration with Redouan Bshary
Damselfish
On coral reefs, a variety of fish “clients” seek the help of a smaller fish, the “cleaner” wrasse (Labroides dimidiatus), to have their ectoparasites removed. Client fish regularly receiving cleaning services reportedly benefit from increased growth and cognitive performance (like the case of Ambon Damsel), but the underlying neural underpinnings that covary with such benefits are unknown. This project aims to understand whether extra costs inflicted by prolonged parasitic infections (due to the absence of cleaner fish on the reef, for instance) may affect client fish brains and whether this may hinder their cognitive performance.
In collaboration with Alexandra Grutter
Guppies
The project with guppies aims at providing essential insights into selective pressures on brain morphology in terms of changes caused by phenotypic plasticity. In a set of laboratory experiments involving male and female guppies (Poecilia reticulata), we manipulated the social environment for these fish over extended periods. We then run a battery of cognitive tests. Upon accomplishing the tests, we generated three-dimensional (3D) brain images with the X-ray technique, and we are currently using deep learning methods to segment brain structures.
In collaboration with Niclas Kolm
Wall lizard
Given that lizards, like fish, are highly plastic, we are employing an integrative approach to study the polymorphic common wall lizard (Podarcis muralis). These lizards’ colour morphs differ in key morphological, physiological, and behavioural traits. Currently, we aim to test whether different colour morphs with alternative behavioural strategies also differ with respect to brain morphology, physiology and potentially correlated key cognitive aspects.
In collaboration with Zbyszek Boratynski and Philipp Lehmann
