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Group Leader: Dr Michael Jennions

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 Botany & Zoology @ ANU

 

Current Group
Michael Jennions
Martin Edvardsson (Post-doc)
Megan Higgie (Post-doc)
Fleur de Crespigny (Visit. Fellow)
Jean Drayton(PhD student)
Brian Mautz (PhD Student)
Richard Milner (PhD Student)
Isobel Booksmythe (PhD student)
Jessica Bolton (Hons student)
Andrew Kahn (Hons Student)
James Davies (Research Officer)

Recent Members

Clint Kelly (Post-doc)
Bob Wong (PhD)
J.E. (Kobus) Boeke (Msc)
Leah Bala (Hons)
Michelle Shackleton (Msc)
Katie Humphrey (Hons)
Fredrick Hayes (Hons)


External Collaborators

Contact

School of Botany & Zoology
Australian National University,
Canberra, ACT 0200,
Australia
 Email

 

 
 


Dr Megan Higgie

                

Email me
 

Background

My general interests are centred on selective processes that generate divergence in mating display traits and preferences among populations, creating the potential for speciation. More specifically, I am interested in the process of reinforcement and the implications that the resulting reproductive character displacement can have on sexual selection and premating isolation within a species. My Honours and PhD research focused on the evolution of reproductive character displacement in the cuticular hydrocarbons of Drosophila serrata – caused by sympatry with a close relative, Drosophila birchii – and how this displacement has interfered with sexual selection between allopatric and sympatric populations of D. serrata.  I finished my PhD at the University of Queensland in 2008 under  the supervision of Prof Mark Blows. 

I am now based at the ANU. I was awarded an ARC Post-doc (2009-2011) and my academic hosts are Scott Keogh and Michael Jennions. I am working on mate choice and preference evolution in a contact zone between lineages of the frog Litoria genimaculata in the Wet Tropics of Queensland.

Publications

10.   Hoskin CJ and Higgie M. 2008.  A new species of velvet gecko (Diplodactylidae; Oedura) from North-east Queensland, Australia. Zootaxa 1788:21-36 [PDF]

9. Higgie M and Blows MW. 2008. The evolution of reproductive character displacement conflicts with how sexual selection operates within a species.  Evolution 62:1192-1203  [PDF]

8.   Higgie M and Blows MW. 2007. Are traits that experience reinforcement also under sexual selection? American Naturalist 170:409-420  [PDF]

7.   Van Homrigh A, Higgie M, McGuigan K, and Blows MW. 2007. The depletion of genetic variance by sexual selection. Current Biology 17:528-532  [PDF]

 6.   Hoskin CJ, Higgie M, McDonald KR, and Moritz C. 2005. Reinforcement drives rapid allopatric speciation. Nature 437:1353-1356  [PDF]

 5.   Hoskin CJ and Higgie M. 2005. Minimum calling altitudes of Cophixalus frogs on Thornton Peak, northeastern Queensland. Memoirs of the Queensland Museum 51:572  [PDF]

4.   Blows MW and Higgie M. 2003. Genetic constraints on the evolution of mate recognition under natural selection. American Naturalist 161:240-253  [PDF]

3.   Blows MW and Higgie M. 2002. Evolutionary experiments on mate recognition in the Drosophila serrata species complex. Genetica 116:239-250  [PDF]

 2.   Hine E, Lachish S, Higgie M, and Blows MW. 2002. Positive genetic correlation between female preference and offspring fitness. Proceedings of the Royal Society Series B 269:2215-2219  [PDF]

 1.   Higgie M, Chenoweth S, and Blows MW. 2000. Natural selection and the reinforcement of mate recognition. Science 290:519-521  [PDF]

Contact

 My  email address is megan.higgie@anu.edu.au

 

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