Manfred Hartbauer

My research focuses on selective factors favoring the evolution of chorus synchrony in a tropical chorusing katydid, the function and evolution of collective defense in group-living non-social aphids (plant lice) and the collision avoidance behavior of locusts. In a team we also investigate the noise robustness of the acoustic communication of a tropical katydid in behavioral and neurophysiological experiments using natural rainforest noise as masker. Currently, I supervise a PhD student who investigates the multimodal communication of a tropical katydid that is based on airborne and substrate-borne sound. In an innovative approach we test a bionic collision-avoidance system that was inspired by the eyes of locusts and simulate the night-vision capabilities of nocturnal insects in computer simulations.