117. Wild Minds: The Evolutionary Divergence of Brain and Behaviour (with Professor Stephen Montgomery)

In our latest episode of Wild Minds, we are joined by Professor Stephen Montgomery to talk about how evolution has contributed to the diversification of both brain and behaviour, using neotropical butterflies as an example. We discusshow diversification across butterfly species has enabled adaptation to different habitat types and resulted in various sensory adaptations and novel behaviours. We also explore the complex interactions between ecological niche, lifestyle factors, brain function, and behaviours like spatial navigation and foraging, and how this can be studied in butterflies both in the lab and in the wild.

Stephen Montgomery is a the University of Cambridge as a Prince Philip Professor of ecology and evolution. Previously, Stephen completed a BSc in natural sciences followed by a PhD in primate brain evolution with Nick Mundy at the University of Cambridge. He then joined Judith Mank’s lab at UCL for a postdoctoral fellowship where he began to research brain evolution in neotropical butterflies of the Central & South Americas, which developed into his current research focus. He was previously a professor of evolutionary neurobiology and behaviour at the University of Bristol. His work so far has identified genes associated with the evolution of brain size, and investigated the causes and consequences of co-evolution between different regions of the brain.

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