Plymouth, UK: PhD, evol of trade-offs in mating behaviour and physiology Tisk

"The evolution of trade-offs in mating behaviour and physiology"
University of Plymouth, UK
School of Biological Sciences
Applications are invited for a three-year PhD studentship, fully funded
for EU/UK students.
The studentship will start on October 1st 2015.

Supervisors:
Dr Michael Thom (University of Plymouth)
Dr Mark Briffa (Plymouth)
Prof. Calvin Dytham (University of York)
Prof. Helen White-Cooper (University of Cardiff)

Summary:
For male animals, successful reproduction involves a number of key
processes including mate searching, courtship, copulation, and sperm
competition. Many of these are energetically expensive, time-consuming,
or otherwise incompatible and as a result males are unlikely to
be able to maximise performance in all of them simultaneously. How
males value the different processes will depend on both physical and
social environment, with males expected to plastically adjust their
relative investment in each to maximise their reproductive success under
prevailing conditions. Using the model species Drosophila melanogaster,
this project will explore how these different components of the male
reproductive process are traded off under simultaneous variation in
biotic (e.g. population density, sex ratio) and abiotic (e.g. nutritional
composition, food distribution) conditions. The student will be based
at Plymouth, but will conduct histological work on the rate and fidelity
of spermatogenesis with Prof. Helen White-Cooper at Cardiff. In addition
to the empirical studies on behaviour and sperm production, the student
will have the opportunity to learn the programming language C++, and
will use this to develop an agent-based model exploring the evolution
of ecological plasticity in mating behaviour and physiology - this will
be overseen by Prof. Calvin Dytham at York.

If you wish to discuss this project further informally, please contact Dr
Thom on  Tato emailová adresa je chráněna před spamboty, abyste ji viděli, povolte JavaScript .

See
https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/student-life/your-studies/the-graduate-school/phd-studentship-in-biological-sciences
for further details

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