My research centers around the visual ecology of animals - including birds and butterflies, moths and bees, frogs and toads.

Vision means information from light. Every second of the day, thousands of millions of photons of different wavelengths reach an animal’s eye from all directions. They carry nearly unlimited information about its habitat, conspecifics, prey, predators, homes, and other objects. The eyes capturing these photons have a limited number of photoreceptors, and the brain analysing the information is limited in size and capacity. Therefore, eyes and visual systems act as information filters - passing only that information that is relevant for the ecology and behaviour of their owner to its brain.

Which adaptations of the eyes allow animals to achieve their unique visual capabilities? How do the specific adaptations of different species relate to their ecology and behaviour? And what can we learn from these adaptations for a better understanding of vision in general, for animal protection, and for technical applications?