Research
Elaborate Morphology - Sexual Selection - Trade-offs - Ecological Innovation

 

Sexual and social selection drives the evolution of a dizzying diversity of elaborate morphological traits. My research aims to understand the consequences of trait elaboration using natural history observations, experiments and comparative analysis.

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1) Trade-offs - Elaborate morphology can provide a window into the pattern and process underlying morphological evolution across scales:  within individuals, within populations and across species.  

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2) Sexual selection and energetics - sexually selected traits can be costly to produce

 and maintain, but what does the term "cost" actually mean? I provide an energetic perspective

on the "costs" of sexually selected traits providing avenues to understand behaviour, morphology and physiology from the common currency of energy. 

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3) Sexual dimorphism - Sex-specific selection results in different phenotypes in females and males - yet these different phenotypes interact with the environment in novel and complex ways. My research suggests that understanding sex-specific metabolic rates can provide insight into understanding the forces shaping sexually dimorphic phenotypes. 

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4) Sexual and ecological selection - Sexual selection interacts with ecological selection in complex ways. We have found that elaborate traits are co-opted to serve anti-predatory functions. These findings suggest integrating sexual traits into ecological contexts to understand their evolution. 

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                      { Key figures from papers shown below: See                   for associated papers }​

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