University of Edinburgh NPAW 2025

Insects' sensory system is miniaturised but sophisticated; the key innovation in their evolutionary success for 400 million years. However, their fossils have been overlooked, and thus the ecological function and evolution in deep time remain veiled. Here I found well-preserved insect sensors in Cretaceous amber with new visualisation methods. Their features are comparable with extant counterparts, enabling the reconstruction of their function and behavioural ecology. Fossilised sensory systems are reliable clues to reveal the mode of life of extinct insects.

Sophie is broadly interested in plant physiology, in particular photosynthesis. She began her PhD at Lancaster University in 2019, where she investigated photosynthetic diversity in Euphorbiaceae to understand why C4 photosynthesis is so rare in trees. Prior to her PhD, she was a research assistant at the University of Cambridge, during which time she worked on characterising pyrenoid components in the model alga Chlamydomonas. In the McCormick Lab she will be returning to this area of research, working on installing a functional pyrenoid-based CO2-concentrating mechanism in Arabidopsis.