We study the evolutionary genetics of sexual selection and sexual conflict, primarily with the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster and a combination of phenotypic and genomic approaches. A major aim is to better understand the ways sexual selection constrains and facilitates adaptation, in particular with respect to the evolution of differences between the sexes. A recurrent feature of our work is the use of experimental evolution, where replicated populations evolve in manipulated environments and are tracked in real time. Unlike research focused on past evolutionary change that relies largely on inference via correlation, experimental evolution allows us to directly test predictions of evolutionary theory and often leads to exciting and unexpected outcomes.
Check out the research tab for a description of the different projects in the lab.
Lab news
1/2/24: Sakshi’s paper on how sex ratio affects the strength of sexual selection is out in Behavioral Ecology here.
9/23/23: Graham presented a poster on our reinforcement project at SEPEEG 2023 at Mountain Lake Biological Station.
7/14/23: Marion did an awesome job presenting her summer research project at the Governor’s School for Science and Mathematics poster session at USC.
6/30/23: Claudia successfully defended her PhD on the genetic basis of male mating success in Aedes aegypti! Congratulations Claudia!
6/25/23: Both Samantha and Graham presented their work as talks at the Evolution meeting in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
5/2/23: The whole lab just finished a month-long outreach project at Meadow Glen Middle School where we taught all of the 8th grade science classes the fundamentals of Mendelian genetics using flies and classic fly phenotypes (a new part of the SC state curriculum for 8th graders).
4/21/23: Skylar received an honorable mention for her poster at Discover USC on reproductive isolation between laboratory Drosophila populations!
4/1/23: Claudia’s paper that manipulated sexual selection in evolving mosquito populations is out in Current Biology here. We found that removing sexual selection causes rapid genome-wide divergence and identified a chemosensory gene important for male mating success.
3/2/23: Brian gave a talk in the “Everything you ever wanted to know about sex” workshop at the Fly meeting in Chicago about how mating system manipulation has led to the evolution of genomes and transcriptomes in our long-term experimental populations.
1/31/23: Samantha received a SPARC Graduate Research Grant that will allow her to extend her Ph.D. dissertation, congratulations Samantha!