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LYNDON (ALEX) JORDAN - PhD STUDENT RESEARCH SUPERVISOR - ROB BROOKS
EDUCATION
RESEARCH
I am broadly interested in the selective pressures shaping investment into reproductive effort. My past research has focussed on the reproductive strategies available to thelytokous honeybees (in which workers are able to effectively clone themselves without mating), and the consequences of this reproductive strategy for kin selection and social structures. I also examined the genetic architecture of the traits conferring thelytokous reproduction and the ecological factors that may maintain population separation between two South African honeybee populations.
My PhD research considers the investment made by male fish into reproductive and competitive behavioural patterns. For males of many species, investment in reproduction ceases once successful copulation and release of sperm has occurred. However, these males may still incur significant pre-copulatory reproductive costs including territory defence, mate searching and sexual display. In species with traditional sex roles, females may select among males and show preference for traits such as exaggerated sexual ornaments or displays. While theoretical models have shown costs are necessary to maintain the honesty of these signals, empirical evidence of these costs is lacking. I aim to quantify the energetic costs of courtship display in an established model system, the guppy (Poecilia reticulata), and an Australian freshwater species of increasing research interest, the Pacific Blue-Eye (Pseudomugil signifer).
Commonly, the costs of male reproductive effort are measured as secondary costs, such as increased predation risk, and where direct costs are examined, estimates are made from correlated measurements such as the rate of display. The latter approach may be flawed if the energetic demands of display are so low that they do not impose any significant selective pressure on displaying individuals, and in any case does not allow a precise appraisal of the direct costs of display. I will measure the immediate costs of courtship display using flow-through respirometry, a method that is non-invasive and allows examination of complex behavioural displays.
I will also examine the influence of social and environmental conditions on reproductive effort. This research makes parallels between reproductive strategy and optimal foraging decisions. Where a particular resource becomes limiting (e.g. female mates when the operational sex ratio becomes male-biased) the reproductive strategy of males should shift to optimise the return per unit effort, in both the immediate (plastic) sense, as well as on an evolutionary scale. I am conducting experiments that aim to increase our understanding of these factors.
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AUTHORISED BY Head, School of BEES Page last updated: 18th August, 2008 |
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