The German Research Foundation (DFG) is funding a number of collaborative experimental-theoretical projects within its new priority program Evolutionary Optimization of Neuronal Processing. At the Institute of Zoology the Computational Systems Neuroscience group headed by Prof. Dr. Martin Nawrot teams up with Prof. Dr. Steffen Harzsch, University of Greifswald, and Dr. Jürgen Rybak, Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, to study Evolutionary specialization of neuronal core circuits in arthropod olfactory systems.