Gabriella Gibson

Biography

Gabriella Gibson obtained her PhD on Mosquito Behaviour at the University of Sussex (1978-81), in the laboratory of Dr Mick Gillies (field entomologist) and Dr Mike Jones (circadian rhythms physiologist) and collaborated with colleagues in the Centre for Excellence in Neurophysiology, specialising in visually controlled behaviour in nocturnal mosquitoes. Her first Post-doc research position was at Imperial College at the Silwood Park site (1981- 1986), supervised by Dr John Brady, an expert in the circadian control of behaviour in tsetse fly, where she extended her techniques in video-recording of flight behaviour in laboratory to field studies in Zimbabwe. She demonstrated that tsetse do not ‘see’ zebras, and therefore, rarely feed on them, and that tsetse use a novel mechanism for using host odours to locate favoured hosts. Over the course of four field season she also witnessed the development of the famous tsetse traps and targets developed by Vale, Hargrove, Torr, Hall and others, which has become the iconic case-study that shows basic principles of sensory control of behaviour are key to the design of successful surveillance and control devices She then took up a Lectureship at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (1987-1991), where she began her long-term ambition to apply the principles of behaviour and the tools she had acquired this far to the study and control of mosquitoes; e.g., analysis of the limits of nocturnal vision, characterisation of the anatomy of mosquito eyes and development of a novel, behaviourally sensitive bioassay to measure the efficacy of insecticides, which has since been adopted by the WHO. A return to Imperial College at Silwood Park (1992-1998) led to collaborations with Prof. Mario Coluzzii and his protégé Dr Carlo Costantini, with further laboratory and field studies of the host-seeking behaviour of malarial mosquitoes, which led to the development of the first odour-baited entry trap for malarial mosquitoes and a greater understanding of the significant role CO2 plays in relation to the background of many other host odours.

Research Interest

Her research is inter-disciplinary, involving the study of animal behaviour, sensory physiology and neurophysiology. Fieldwork is crucial to establish the context in which behaviours occur, and laboratory studies are required to investigate the details of sensory-guided behaviour where the most essential environmental parameters can be recreated and manipulated by the experimenter. The aim is to identify key stimuli that guide behaviour and how those stimuli are used by the sensory-motor systems of insects. Knowledge of behaviour is a prerequisite to the development of well-designed tools to monitor and control pest insects and contributes insights into how sensory systems work in higher order animals.