Research
Finding the signal in a noisy world
How do animals gather, filter, and act on meaningful information in one of the most complex environments on earth — and what happens when we add to that noise?
Our research centres on how crustacean and other marine invertebrates gather, process, and use information to navigate uncertain, noisy, and rapidly changing environments. We work at the intersection of morphology, behaviour, physiology, and ecology to understand the evolutionary context in which sensory traits arise and change.
We study how tiny structures — antennae, claws, and microscopic hairs called sensilla — shape information acquisition, decision-making, and biological performance. Ultimately, we want to understand how animals cope with ecological change, including the growing problem of human-generated ‘noise’ in marine environments.
Much of our work uses crustaceans and other marine invertebrates as model systems — powerful, tractable organisms for understanding information ecology in action.
Media Centre
Videos
Antennule shift in the common hermit crab P. bernhardus. This is part of the video footage from our first experiment examining attention in crustaceans. In this experiment, we added a stimulus to the water a crab was in and watched for a change in the direction its antennules were flicking to see if the crab shifted…
CLICK THE PHOTO TO SEE FOR YOURSELF
Downloadables
Papers
Drummond, A., Holloway, T., Nash, S., Wilson, A.D.M., Turner, L.M., Briffa, M. and Bilton, D.T. (2025), Intraspecific Sensory Diversity and the Decapod Claw: Patterns of Sensillation Are Heterochelic and Sexually Dimorphic In Pagurus bernhardus. Journal of Morphology, 286: e70054.
Posters and Presentations
THE BOLD AND THE BALD: Boldness in hermit crabs is associated with an increase in sensory capacity
SHIFT ATTENTION: Antennules as indicators of crustacean attention & interest
Video
Poster
Poster - References
Meet Hermione: the female of the species
Presentation