My research focuses on how insect colour vision systems have evolved in varied photic environments and for different visual tasks. I am interested in the evolution of genes that underpin sensitivity to light and mechanisms of spectral tuning that lead to novel spectral sensitivities.

Feller, K. D., Sharkey, C. R., McDuffee-Altekruse, A., Bracken-Grissom, H. D., Lord, N. P., Porter, M. L. and Schweikert, L. E. (2020). Surf and turf vision: Patterns and predictors of visual acuity in compound eye evolution. Arthropod Struct. Dev. 101002.
   
   Sharkey, C. R., Blanco, J., Leibowitz, M., Pinto Benito, D. and Wardill, T. J. (2020). The spectral sensitivity of Drosophila photoreceptors. Sci. Rep. 10, 18242. 
   
   Foster, J. J., Temple, S. E., How, M. J., Daly, I. M., Sharkey, C. R., Wilby, D. and Roberts, N. W. (2018). Polarisation vision: overcoming challenges of working with a property of light we barely see. Sci. Nat. 105, 27. 
   
   Sharkey, C. R., Fujimoto, M. S., Lord, N. P., Shin, S., McKenna, D. D., Suvorov, A., Martin, G. J. and Bybee, S. M. (2017). Overcoming the loss of blue sensitivity through opsin duplication in the largest animal group, beetles. Sci. Rep. 7, 8. 
   
   Suvorov, A., Jensen, N. O., Sharkey, C. R., Fujimoto, M. S., Bodily, P., Wightman, H. M. C., Ogden, T. H., Clement, M. J. and Bybee, S. M. (2016). Opsins have evolved under the permanent heterozygote model: insights from phylotranscriptomics of Odonata. Mol. Ecol. 26, 1306–1322. 
   
   Lord, N. P., Plimpton, R. L., Sharkey, C. R., Suvorov, A., Lelito, J. P., Willardson, B. M. and Bybee, S. M. (2016). A cure for the blues: opsin duplication and subfunctionalization for short-wavelength sensitivity in jewel beetles (Coleoptera: Buprestidae). BMC Evol. Biol. 16, 107.