Insect chemoreception: a tribute to John G. Hildebrand
Venue: Journal of Comparative Physiology A

2010; Hansson and Stensmyr 2011; Martin et al. 2011). Especially, research on sex-pheromone systems in Lepidoptera has significantly contributed to the understanding of the functional organization and physiology of the insect olfactory system (Hildebrand 1996). The pioneering studies on moths were followed by research on other insect chemosensory model systems, which boosted the whole field of chemosensory sciences. Social Hymenoptera like the honeybee and ants have opened up the field for the study of mechanisms of chemosensory behavior in the context of social communication, learning and memory (e.g. Hölldobler 1999; Menzel and Giurfa 2001; Galizia and Rössler 2010). The astounding genetic tool-box of Drosophila melanogaster allowed for the rise of neurogenetics that dissected chemosensory behavior all the way down to the level of behaviorally relevant genes (e.g. Konopka and Benzer 1971; Fernández and Kravitz 2013, in this issue). Due to the enormous breadth of experimental approaches that can be applied, chemosensory research on insects today represents a most lively, original, stimulating, and innovative field in the behavioral neurosciences with a close link to chemical and behavioral ecology. On one hand, it demonstrates common principles of chemosensory systems even shared between insects and mammals (e.g. Hildebrand and Shepherd 1997), and on the other hand, it illustrates the amazingly inventive variations to common schemes across different species adapted to various environments (Galizia and Rössler 2010; Hansson and Stensmyr 2011). This special issue is based upon the topics of an international symposium at the University of Würzburg, Germany, in July 2012, in honor of John Hildebrand. The symposium was initiated by Ed Kravitz and Monika Stengl and was organized by Wolfgang Rössler (University Würzburg, Germany) and Monika Stengl (University of Kassel, Germany). The meeting was supported by the DFG priority This special issue is dedicated to John G. Hildebrand, Regents Professor, founding director and many years (1985–2013) head of the Arizona Research Laboratories Division of Neurobiology (since 2009 the Department of Neuroscience), University of Arizona in Tucson, to pay tribute to his outstanding contributions over his long career devoted to understanding the neuroethology of insect chemoreception. Chemosensory systems play key roles for the survival and reproduction of most animal species. It has puzzled scientists since many years how the highly complex molecular olfactory world is detected by olfactory receptors, encoded into neuronal activity, and processed within the central nervous system to finally trigger adaptive behavior. Even today, olfactory transduction as well as encoding and perception are far from being understood and are lively debated in the various areas of chemosensory research. Since the beginning, insects have played a very influential role in this field, due to the important role of olfaction for insect behavior and the accessibility of insects for different experimental manipulations. Insect model systems allow integrative analyses at all levels of complexity: from molecular genetics and identified single-cell studies to the analysis of neuronal networks and the examination of insect behavior in interaction with its ecological niche (for recent reviews Galizia and Rössler