Food choice is an important driver of speciation and invasion of novel ecological niches. However, we know little about the mechanisms leading to changes in dietary preference. We use the three closely-related species Drosophila sechellia, D. simulans and D. melanogaster to study taste circuit and food choice evolution. D. sechellia, a host specialist, feeds exclusively on a single...
The honey bee Apis mellifera is a traditional model for the study of olfactory perception, information processing, and learning abilities. Surprisingly, this species’ sense of taste remains largely understudied compared to the other sensory modalities. Nonetheless, honey bees’ gustatory abilities are crucial for the survival of the species, since they influence food choices and enable the...
