The J Lab
Group Leader: Dr Michael Jennions

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Current Group
Michael Jennions
Jennie Mallela (Post-doc)
Martin Edvardsson (Visit Fellow)
Crystal Vincent (Visit Fellow)
Richard Milner (PhD Student)
Isobel Booksmythe (PhD student)
Sophie Callander (PhD Student)
Andrew Kahn (PhD Student)
Dominique Roche (PhD Student)
Jonathan Henshaw (Hons student)
James Davies (Research Officer)

 

Recent Members
Megan Higgie (Post-doc)
Clint Kelly (Post-doc)
 Fleur de Crespigny (Visit. Fellow)
Jean Drayton(PhD student)
Brian Mautz (PhD Student)
 Bob Wong (PhD Student)
J.E. (Kobus) Boeke (Msc)
Michelle Shackleton (Msc)

 Jules Livingston (Hons Student)
Fredrick Hayes (Hons Student)
Jessica Bolton (HonsStudent)
 Leah Bala (Hons Student)
Katie Humphrey (Hons Student)

Contact

Evolution, Ecology & Genetics Research School of Biology
Australian National University,
Canberra, ACT 0200,
Australia
 Email

 

External Collaborators

 
 


Andrew Kahn
Email me
 

Background

I did my undergraduate degree at the ANU. In my third year, I did a special topics course with Michael Jennions modeling the evolution of polyandry and the optimal number of mates. Over the 2008/9 summer I did a summer vacation scholarship in the J-lab.  The paper that resulted is below (paper 1). In mid-2009 I started my Honours at the ANU, again with my main supervisor as  Michael Jennions.  I studied  offspring sex ratio skew in the mosquitofish Gambusia.  This project is now successfully completed and being written up (we got some very interesting results).

I commence my PhD in 2011 under the supervision of Michael Jennions and Hanna Kokko; and subsequently Patricia Backwell  To get started I collaborated with Jules Livingston on a project looking at the long-term effects of compensatory growth on fitness and adult morphology in Gambusia (paper 2 below). I have also initiated collaborative theoretical projects on (a) mate guarding and parental care (with Hanna, Lisa Schwanz and Michael); (b) sex ratios and juvenile mortality (with Hanna and Michael).  From September to December 2011 I have been fortunate to be able to work in Darwin with Patricia Backwell on a project on temporal variation in mate choice in fiddler crabs using both experiments with robotic crabs and observational data.

In 2012 I promise that I will be writing up my crab work, the two theoretical projects and my Honours project (Yes, Michael did add this sentence in). I will also be dreaming up cunning plans as to what other projects I want to do during my PhD.

Publications

1. Kahn AT, Mautz B, Jennions MD.  2010. Females prefer to associate with males with longer intromittent organs in mosquitofish. Biology Letters 6: 55-58 [PDF]  Coverage of paper in Nature

2. Kahn AT, Livingston JD, Jennions MD. 2012. Do females preferentially associate with males given a better start in life? Biology Letters [PDF of online version]

Media Interest in Paper 2

Sydney Morning Herald	Science Alert	MS NBC	Medical News	Live Science	Top News USA
Top News NZ	Australian Geographic

 

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