Bio:
PROFESSIONAL PREPARATION:
Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut B.S. (Physics) 1963
University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon Ph.D. (Biology) 1967
University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon Postdoctoral 1969
APPOINTMENTS:
12/72-05 Director, Friday Harbor Laboratories.
1975-present Professor, Department of Biology, University of Washington.
1976-1977 Guggenheim Fellow
1979-1981 Director, Neurobiology Program, NSF
1981-1985 Chairman, Department of Zoology, University of Washington
1987-1989 Director, Centennial Meeting-American Society of Zoologists.
1990-1 Chair, ASZ Committee on Declining Biodiversity
1993-9 Jacob Javits Neuroscience Award (NIH)
Research Interests:
Our work is a combination of field and laboratory experiments to determine how and why some marine molluscs detect and orient to the geomagnetic field. We have identified a pair of neurons in the brain that respond electrically when the ambient magnetic field changes direction. More recently we also discovered that these neurons make a unique trio of peptides which regulate ciliary activity on the foot of the animal (and elsewhere). Our present work focuses on defining the roles of geomagnetic orientation in the ecology of the animal, on the molecular and receptor level interactions of the ciliomotor peptides on their target tissues, and we are especially interested in the fundamental mechanisms of primary sensory transducers for geomagnetism. |
Selected Publications:
R. C. Wyeth and A. O. D. Willows. Field behavior of the nudibranch mollusc, Tritonia diomedea. Biol.Bull. 2006.(In Press)
R. C. Wyeth, O. M. Woodward, and A. O. D. Willows. Orientation and navigation relative to water flow, prey, conspecifics and predators by the nudibranch mollusc, Tritonia diomedea. Biol.Bull. 2006. (In Press)
Willows, A.O. Dennis, 2001. Costs and Benefits of Opisthobranch Swimming and Neurobehavioral Mechanisms. Amer. Zool., 41:943-951.
Willows A.O.D., Willows, A.O. Dennis. 1999. Shoreward orientation involving geomagnetic cues in the nudibranch mollusc Tritonia diomedea. Marine and Freshwater Behav. and Physiol. 32: 181-192.
Pavlova G., and Phillips N.E., TPEP, a neuropeptide in identified molluscan brain cells regulates the activity of ciliated cells, J. Exp. Biol., 200(10):1433-39, 1997
Lloyd P.E., Phares G.A., Phillips N.E., and Willows A.O.D., Purification and sequencing of neuropeptides from identified neurons in the marine mollusc, Tritonia, Peptides, 17:17-23, 1996
Murray J.A., and Willows A.O.D., Function of identified nerves in orientation to water flow in Tritonia diomedea, J. Comp. Physiol. A 178:201-209, 1996
K. Lohmann, A.O.D. Willows, and R. Pinter, Identified Magnetosensory Neurons in the Brain of Tritonia, J Exp. Biology 161:1-24, 1991
Lohmann, K.J. and A.O. Dennis Willows, 1987, Lunar Modulated Geomagnetic Orientation by a Marine Mollusc, Science 235:331-334
Teaching Interests:
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