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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

 


NEWS

31 January 2012

(If I have forgotten anything - sorry. Let me know and I will add it).

  • Brian M will give his PhD seminar on Monday, 6 Jan @ 4pm. Be there.

  • Martin E and Richard M are preparing DECRAs for submission in March. Wish them luck

  • Megan H and Conrad have 'officially' left to start their lectureships at JCU. Good bye and good luck.  We hope to see you again soon.

  • Dom R, Sandra &  Canadian collaborators submitted a study on shelter use by fish on Caribbean coral reefs to PLoSOne. G'Luck.

  • Frances J (Jacomb) (Visiting Summer Scholar) finished up last week - having looked at far more Gambusia than is healthy.  Frances is now en route back to NZ via Melbourne. Good luck for your final year of studies in Otago. We hope to see you back soon.

  • Brian M will be submitting his human mate choice study this week. Hold thumbs.

  • Brian M has a post-doc in Ottowa with Howard Rundle. Congratulations Brian.

  • Jennie M (Mallela) is now in the dept and will officially start her DECRA when Immigration finish the paperwork. Welcome Jennie!

  • Crystal V (Vincent) is in the department as a visiting fellow. She will be off for a few months mid-year then back towards the end of the year for an extended stay in Canberra. Welcome Crystal!

  • Isobel B handed in her PhD on Friday 13th Jan. A Great Party followed. No major hangovers reported, but a lot of dancing.

  • Richard M handed in his PhD on Friday 13th Jan. A Great Party followed. No major hangovers reported, but a lot of dancing.

  • Brian M handed in his PhD just before Xmas. A Great Party followed, followed by a hangover that nearly killed one of us.

  • Richard M had the final paper in his PhD thesis accepted for publication at Ethology.  Every chapter was published. Wow!

  • Andrew K and Jules L had their paper on effects of compensatory growth on attractiveness of males in Gambusia published by Biology Letters. There was lots of media attention (see their webpages).

  • Jean D has submitted two chapters from her thesis to journals. Way to go Jean.

  • Andrew K  and Sophie C are back from the 2011 field season in Darwin and now have plenty of crab work to write up.

  • Sophie C and Jess B have submitted a paper based on their work in Zanzibar. Fingers crossed for good news soon.

  • Brian M has submitted his meta-analysis of correlations between sperm and ornamental traits

  • Jono H is working hard on his Honours thesis and cracking the evolution of anisogamy in the marine world.

  • Dominique R is almost finished writing up an experiment on fish metabolism from his recent trip to the USA. He and Sandra are now back on Lizard Island collecting even  more data. Go team scuba.

  • Michael J & Co published a paper in J Evol Biol that cites Kylie Minogue and so much more.

October 2011

  • Sophie C has just had her paper on male mate choice in Gambusia accepted by Behavioral Ecology. Yes. Hangover is imminent.

  • Sophie C had her paper on wave rate and claw size in Uca mjobergi accepted by J of  Ethology. Nice work Soph.

  • Isobel B has had her latest paper accepted by Behavioral Ecology.

  • Richard M has had his fiddler crab paper on males copying each other accepted by Biology Letters.  Number 13 - Lucky for some!!

  • Isobel B is now working on her next masterpiece on male choice in fish.

  • Brian M is submitting his Gambusia harassment paper this week (Oct 21).

  • Brian M is in Melbourne collecting data on human mate choice. Work is going very well.

  • Jono H has just returned from a lizard hunting trip in the Flinders. He is now even more appreciative of  a theoretician's life.

  • Sophie C and Andrew K are hard at work in Darwin doing fiddler crab with Pat Backwell.

  • Dominique R is writing up an experiment on fish metabolism from his recent trip to the USA.

  • Dominique R is in Perth this week at a Coral Conference

  • Andrew K and Jules L are revising their manuscript (still in review) on the effect of compensatory growth on attractiveness of males in Gambusia for Biology Letters.

  • Andrew K and Hanna Kokko are revising an opinion piece for Evolution.

September 2011

  • Jean D is now officially Doctor Jean Drayton! Yes! Great referee reports too. We are all thrilled. Now there is just the small matter of publishing the final two papers...

  • Isobel B is revising a paper on the effects of male size and familiarity on coalition formation in fiddler crabs for Behavioral Ecology.

  • Richard M has submitted a paper on male-male eavesdropping in fiddlers and has a final draft of another on choice of opponents that will soon be submitted.

  • Brian M has completed data collection & analysis for a meta-analysis - just an Intro and Discussion to go until ready to submit.

  • Sophie C and Andrew K are now in Darwin doing fiddler crab work with Pat Backwell.

  • Jono H has started Honours - given a great intro talk and submitted a classy thesis proposal. Now onto the world of models.

  • Sophie C gave an awesome talk at ESEB on robo-crab. It was fun, informative and engaging. Just like Sophie.

  • Andrew K, Sophie C  and Isobel B  have just returned from the ESEB conference in Tubingen, Germany.

  • Sophie C and Jess B have had a paper on crab coalitions accepted by Ethology. Well done both.

  • Andrew K and Jules L have submitted a paper about about how compensatory growth affects male attractiveness.

  • Jules L received an outstanding 1st class mark for her Honours. She was then awarded a university medal. Congrats. Jules is now travelling in France, Portugal, Austria and Italy on holiday, but will soon return to write up her project and clean some fish tanks!

  • Brian M has ethics approval for his work on attractiveness in humans and is finalising the software.

  • Sophie C was awarded a Lehrner Gray Grant by the American Museum of Natural History.

  • Martin E is still hard at work collecting the final data for his large scale studies.

  • Dominique R has been awarded a fancy grant with a complicated name which I forget - remind me. Well done.

  • Dr Megan Higgie is now a  lecturer at James Cook University in Townsville. You will be missed.

  • Isobel B has finished her fish male mate choice study. Whew! Next stop is writing it up (but first several fiddler papers...)

  • James D have survived the great asbestos scare of 2011 and is setting up what might be the penultimate replicate of fish lines. This will mean that we will be able to measure the effects of seven generations of selection on genitalia. Sexy.

MAY 2011

  • Sophie C has received official confirmation that her very first paper is now accepted at B.E.S. Beer O'clock

  • Jules L hands in her Honours thesis on time today. She will then be sleeping for a week. Beer O'clock

  • Andrew K and Hanna Kokko are revising a paper for Evolution. Impressive.

  • Andrew K and Jules L have some cool results about the effects of compensatory growth on male attractiveness. Paper to follow.

  • Martin E is just about to finish a draft of a paper.

  • Dominique R has submitted a grant to the Ecological Society of Australia - fingers crossed.

  • Dr Megan Higgie (full name on this occasion) ...DRUM ROLL... has accepted a lectureship at James Cook University in Townsville. Megan will be starting in July.  Many congratulations from everyone.

  • Megan H has two new papers in press at American Naturalist and Evolution; Megan has also been co-awarded (with Conrad) an Asia Pacific Science Foundation Grant

  • Isobel B has been awarded a research grant by the Animal Behavior Society (USA). Brilliant! NEW

  • Sophie C has been awarded a research grant by Sigma Xi and Linnean Society of New South Wales.  On a roll!

  • Isobel B has finished her initial fish choice trials. She is now starting to look at actual male copulatory success in the choice contexts.

  • Brian M is finalising ethics approval for his work on attractiveness in humans. His new paper is now Online [PDF]

  • James D have successfully set up the final replicate set to fish to breed after a  sixth bout of selection on genitalia

  • The rest of you are apparently still doing what you were in April......surprise me, do something weird, soon!

APRIL 2011

  • A very happy Easter to all of you.

  • Dominique Roche has joined the lab.  A warm welcome. Check out his webpage

  • Michael J has now officially won the lab record for procrastination. Note the interval between the two dates here.

  • Isobel B has only a handful of trials to go and then Part 1 of her fish experiment is done! A mammoth effort.

  • Andrew K has started his fish mating trials looking at how compensatory growth affects attractiveness.

  • Brian M has completed data collection and 'quality control' checking for his next meta-analysis on....

  • Megan H is back from Brisbane having fruitflied her way to success. Welcome back Megan.

  • Jules L has "finished" data analysis and is now in the writing phase of her Honours year. Keep going!

  • Richard M's paper on the effect of neighbour size on choice of opponent is now in press at Behav Ecol

MARCH 2011

  • Jean D has submitted her PhD thesis is it now at the examiners. Her final two chapters are both in review at journals. Her final PhD seminar went extremely well. Now just waiting for the examiner's comments.

  • Brian M has had his paper on male mate choice in Gambusia accepted by Behav Ecol. Hell Yes

  • Brian M, Rachel Slatyer and Pat Backwell's meta-analysis on polyandry has been accepted by Biol Rev. Hallelujah.

  • Megan H has some fantastically good news that we hope will soon be official. Congratulations.

  • Martin E is STILL looking relaxed and in control. This is very suspicious because he trying to record crickets calling. Rumours that he is a Zen Master are growing. Ommmmmmm

  • Isobel B has started her experiment on male mate choice in Gambusia. She has 240 trials to run at 8 per day...welcome to the treadmill. Meanwhile, the PDF of Isobel's paper on male mate choice is now available on her webpage.

  • Richard M is moving back to Braidwood to write up his thesis and work on his DECRA (although thanks to the wisdom of the ARC he will not apply this round due to the new requirement - compared to APDs - that you must have your PhD on the date of submission).

  • Richard M has had a paper provisionally accepted at Behav Ecol on the effect of neighbour size on choice of opponent

  • Fleur dC is busy working on her DECRA. We wish her every success with it and that her talent is rewarded.

  • Sophie C now has three finished manuscripts in submission on crabs (2) and fish (1) and a draft written for another. Hang in there.

  • Andrew K has started his PhD. He and Hanna Kokko have just submitted an article to Evolution.   He also has male fish that are ready to have their attractiveness measured for his collaborative study with Jules L on the effects of compensatory growth. Meanwhile, he is writing up his Honours work on offspring sex ratios.

  • Jules L has finished the data collection phase for her endless honours project. Brilliant. She has a great data set and is now writing up her Honours Thesis. She did an excellent job with her final Honours seminar

  • James D managed to somehow get a unusually infertile set of Gambusia to breed and, despite the delay, only missed the next deadline by a week or so. Thank you. James also does an amazing impression of someone doing aerobics. Beg him to do it.

  • Michael J is alive and well and maintaining his usual guilt levels about not spending enough time chatting with students and post-docs......Today he has on his desk a PhD thesis, 7 manuscripts and a grant to review. Must learn to say No.

JANUARY 2011

  • Megan H has survived the floods in Brisbane, kept her Drosophila alive and has some other goods news (details to follow)

  • Martin E is looking suspiciously relaxed and in control. Must learn the secret of his calmness.

  • Jean D has submitted Chapter 5 of her thesis to Functional Ecology. Chapter 1 has been revised and will be submit by Valentine's Day.

  • Isobel B is busy collecting Gambusia for a project on male mate choice that will start soon.

  • Richard M is busy dreaming up projects for an ARC DECRA post-doc application (ditto Isobel B and Fleur dC)

  • Brian M has received the online version of his crab paper in Behav Ecol.

  • Sophie C is still fighting the good fight with reviewers and now has three finished manuscripts in various stages of submission

  • Andrew K will be starting his PhD at the end of the month. Male fish are already awaiting his return.

  • Jules L is getting closer to the end of the data collection phase for her endless honours project.

  • Michael J is panicking about writing two ARCs while reviewing eight 2011 MSs for journals (and it is only Jan 26!)

  • James D is nursing along an unusually infertile set of Gambusia. Don't they know they are a pest species of enormous fecundity?

DECEMBER 2010

  • Jean D has almost completed Chapter 5 of her thesis. The paper will be submitted to Functional Ecology in January (or else...)

  • Rachel S, Brian M, Pat B and Michael J have sent a revised version of their meta-analysis of polyandry to Biol Rev. Final decision soon...

  • Richard M has had another paper accepted at Behav Ecol Sociobiol. Congrats.

  • MAJOR NEWS: Andrew K has been awarded a prestigious PhD Scholarship. His PhD starts shortly.... Jules L and Andrew have already worked out a cunning plan to extend Jules' s project to maximise the return on her investment in rearing so many fish.

  • Isobel B and Pat B have had their latest paper on male mate choice accepted by Animal Behaviour

  • Brian M did a project on fiddler crabs under the supervision of Pat B. The resultant paper has been accepted by Behav. Ecol. Cool! Brian also has a MS on male mate choice in Gambusia in revision at Behav. Ecol.  It is great to see the PhD chapters accumulating.

  • MAJOR NEWS: Isobel B has been awarded an A.S.S.A.B. Student Research Grant for a fish project. Congratulations

JULY-NOVEMBER 2010

  • Lots has happened...but it has been a long while since I updated, so sorry for anything I have missed.

  • Pat B organised a field season in Zanzibar working on fiddler crabs. A large number of projects were successfully completed by Isobel B, Richard M and Sophie C, alongside Pat's Honours student Catherine Hayes and former student Jess Bolton.

  • James D has returned from a short, but well earned, holiday in Hawaii. He successfully dealt with the absence of most of us for the last few months, and managed to keep our long-term artificial selection on track. Many, many thanks James.

  • Jean D has now published Chapters 2, 3 and 4 from her PhD. They are in press at Behav Ecol., J. Evol. Biol and Evolution. Richard M was also involved in two of these studies. A side-project with Leeann Reaney was accepted for publication in Behav Ecol Sociobiol. Well done Jean.  The final push is now to send off chapters 1 and 5 - both of which are basically written.

  • Isobel B's latest paper with Pat B on inter-specific coalitions  has been accepted for publication in Biology Letters

  • Richard M , Isobel B  and Pat B have a paper in review on time sharing of territories in crabs.

  • Jules L is well into the data collection for her Honours. She has done a fantastic job of staying on top of breeding, rearing and photographing 100's of fish. Everything is on track for a great thesis and lots of papers. Yae.

  • Richard M and Pat B have a fun titled paper in press at Biology Letters ("Eavesdropping in crabs: an agency for ladies detection"). They also  have a paper in review on mate choice copying.

  • Martin E has been short-listed for a lectureship @ Woolongong. Good luck with the interview Martin.

  • Megan H is still hard at work up in Brisbane turning fruitflies into data points. Nearly done we hope. Time to come home....

  • Sophie C has  submitted two papers on female choice in fiddler crabs (with Pat B) and male choice in Gambusia respectively. Fingers crossed for their success. Next task is to write up a paper on social interactions and calling effort in crickets.

  • Rachel S, Brian M, Pat B and Michael J have provisional acceptance (subject to minor revision) of their meta-analysis of polyandry at Biol Rev. Now I just need to get my act together and make those final changes...

  • Andrew K  produced one of the best Hons thesis his examiners had seen in many years. He is set to enroll for a PhD in the J-lab. Meanwhile he is writing up his results, with modeling help from Hanna Kokko. He is also collaborating with Jules L on a fish project.

  • Brian M, Martin E and Andrew K attended the ISBE conference in Perth and returned with their dignity more or less intact.

  • Michael J has two new meta-analyses in the final stages of reviewing (let's hope) with Clint Kelly (on strategic ejaculation) and Amy Davidson & Adrienne Nicotra (plant invasions and plasticity). His next big task is to write two ARC grant proposal to ensure there is still money for us to keep on doing what we do in 2012. Panic? Me? You bet.

JUNE 2010

  • MAJOR NEWS: Isobel B has had a paper reporting on a colleague's complicated quantitative genetics study accepted by Current Biology. Great going. Hopefully one day she will be able to say 'additive genetic variation' without feeling nauseous.

  • MAJOR NEWS: James D will soon be joined in Canberra by Jen. That will be many 1000's of kilometers less to drive each month! Welcome Jen.

  • Jean D submitted chapter 4 of her thesis and it is now being revised for resubmission is response to referee comments. She has also submitted chapter 2 of her thesis. Hold thumbs on both counts for good news soon.

  • Martin E and Fleur dC are back from a brief trip home to Sweden. Welcome back.

  • Richard M  has completed a paper on a form of mate choice copying in fiddler crabs and will soon submit it.

  • Megan H is making steady progress on her fly work up in Brisbane. Fame, fortune and multivariate stats awaits. 

  • Sophie C is still wait for her supervisor to edit a completed manuscript on mate choice in crab. This week, I promise! She has meanwhile completed data collection from analysis of many hours of videos of male mate choice in Gambusia.

  • Andrew K is now somewhere in France. His Honours thesis was exceptionally well received by his examiners and the final mark will reflect this. Now for writing it up......

  • Rachel S also produced a really fantastic Honours thesis. She has just completed a draft of a paper that will be submitted in early July.

  • Rachel S, Brian M, Pat B & Michael J's meta-analysis on polyandry is now in review at Biol Rev. Please, please accept it kind reviewers.

  • Jules Livingston has started Honours. She has already read 10 000 papers and set up fish.  Her project will be a quantitative genetics study looking at ontogenetic changes in variance components for body size and several reproductive traits, and the effect of compensatory growth on these components. Prepare to be amazed.

  • Brian M has finished a final draft of his study on male mate choice under competition in Gambusia. It will be submitted this week.

  • Michael J remains alive after a horrendous bout of grant and paper reviewing. Now he just needs to catch up with student's papers and then life will be perfect (except for the fact that South Africa won't win the World Cup). 

  • IF I FORGOT ANY OTHER NEWS, MY APOLOGIES.

MAY 2010

  • James D continues to smoothly run the Gambusia selection lines, cycle 100's of Km every week and remember everyone's birthdays.  Thank you!

  • Jean D has submitted the fourth chapter of her thesis (which I think looks great), and is just about to resubmit chapter 2.

  • Richard M  has had a paper on eavesdropping in fiddler crabs published in Biology Letters. It includes the cheeky title "Agency for Lady Detection".

  • Isobel B has had a paper on cross species helping in fiddler crabs published in Biology Letters. Isobel's title is more scientific.

  • Michael J and Clint Kelly had their enormous 28 000 word meta-analysis/review rejected. Hot wet tears did flow, but the reviewers had a valid point - Too much! We will dust ourselves off, say !Aluta continua! and  revise it and resubmit...sigh

  • Megan H is now up in Brisbane and back in the dark underworld of Drosophila sex. Good luck Megan.

  • Sophie C has moved house, enticed Tim to Canberra, entered most of the data for two chapters of her thesis and is still wait for her supervisor to edit a completed manuscript. Sorry... Meanwhile she is entering data on male interactions during male mate choice. The results look intriguing - ideal free distribution? Not.

  • Andrew K handed in his Honours thesis. His results on seasonal changes in offspring sex ratios are fantastic. He and Hanna K will soon be modeling the evolution of sex ratios when generations overlap to try and explain them. Meanwhile he has about 30 0000 fish tanks to clean.

  • Rachel S handed in her Honours thesis. It contains some very cool results - never mind penguin prostitutes, what about crab ones?

  • Rachel S and Brian M's meta-analysis is completed. Michael J has only to write the discussion. This week guys......

  • Brian M has finished a final draft of his fiddler crab paper. Still waiting for a certain supervisor to edit it before submission.... Meanwhile he is writing up a study on male mate choice under competition.

  • Michael J will soon be hiding away to review a large number of grants and papers. You are forewarned.

  • Jules Livingston starts Honours shortly. She will be working on the evolution of offspring size. (Jules, I will add you to the Group list in blue above on all pages when I find the time - for technical reasons for now you are only on the frontpage)

APRIL 2010

  • MAJOR NEWS: Jean D's paper (co-authors included Richard M and Michael J) on inbreeding and advertisement calling is now in  press at Evolution. A good place for a very large study.

  • MAJOR NEWS: Richard M  has been awarded a graduate scholarship by the Crustacean Society and a grant by the Linnean Society of New South Wales.  Oh, and he married that Melita Baum chick. Congratulations.

  • Hanna Kokko and Michael J had a News & Views piece in Nature (here). They paid us, so the lab will soon be treated to an evening of free drinks and snacks. Yes!

  • Megan H and Conrad Hoskin's major review of how species interactions affect speciation is now out in Ecology Letters (here)

  • Sophie C has just completed data collection for her third PhD project looking at male mate choice decisions in Gambusia. Well done.

  • Isobel B has just submitted a very cool paper on heterospecifics coalitions in fiddler crabs (with Pat Backwell and team)

  • Rachel S and Brian M's meta-analysis is completed. All that is left is to write the discussion and submit. Soon....

  • Brian M has finished a final draft of his fiddler crab paper. It looks good and he is just waiting for a certain supervisor to read it before submission.

JANUARY-MARCH 2010

  • Andrew K  and Rachel Slayter gave excellent final Honours seminars. Now for the thesis writing...

  • Tanya Detto, Michael J and Pat B's Amer Nat paper on coallitions in crabs was featured in Nature's Research Highlights

  • Michael J  and former post-doc Clint Kelly (now in Iowa) have submitted a mammoth meta-analysis on strategic ejaculation to Biological Reviews. Watch this space for sighs of relief if accepted or hot, wet tears if rejected.

  • Isobel B has just submitted a paper on heterospecifics and mate recognition in fiddler crabs (with Pat Backwell and team)

  • Richard M has just submitted a paper on eavesdroppping in fiddler crabs.

  • Brian M has completed drafts of papers on burrow defence in Uca capricornis (with Pat Backwell and team) and male mate choice in Gambusia.

  • Sophie C has almost completed a  draft of her paper (with Pat Backwell and team) on female choice in Uca mjoebergi.

  • Jess B has written up and submitted her Honours thesis work on size-assortative male fighting from Mozambique for publication...hold thumbs.

  • Richard M got on the cover of Behavioral Ecology for his latest paper. Well done.

           Cover Photo

         

  • Jean D submitted her third PhD Chapter to Evolution (the feedback was good, so hold thumbs for full acceptance). Jean is submitting her fourth chapter today (March 15). Keep going!

  • Rachel Slayter (Hons student with Pat Backwell) and Brian M have completed data collection and analysis for a meta-analysis.  The paper is 3/4 written. Details to follow as soon as we submit it...

  • Michael J & Hanna Kokko have completed two book chapters. The first book is now available: Sexual selection. In DF Westneat & CW Fox (Eds) Evolutionary Behavioural Ecology, Oxford University Press, Oxford. The second is in press: Behavioral ecology: the natural history of evolutionary theory. In: Bell MA, Eanes WF, Futuyma DJ, Levinton JS (Eds) Evolution After Darwin: the First 150 Years. Sinaeur Publishing.

DECEMBER 2009

  • Rachel S has collected some fantastic data following up on Richard's work on trading sex for favours!

  • Brian M and Sophie C both completed their first field projects on fiddler crabs up in Darwin under the wise supervision of Pat Backwell. Papers to follow by mid-2010 (we hope)....

  • Isobel B & Richard M completed their field seasons in Darwin with Pat. They collected a heap of data.

  • Isobel B has had her fifth paper accepted at Anim Behav. Congrats

  • Richard M has had his sixth and seventh paper accepted (Behav Ecol and  Anim Behav respectively). Congrats.

  • Andrew K is well into his Honors project and getting offspring sex ratio info for the second half of the Gambusia breeding season.

  • Tanya Detto, Pat Backwell & Michael J have had a fiddler crab paper accepted at Amer Nat. It is out in March click here

  • Michael J is co-author on a new paper with Hanna Kokko, senior authored by Hope Klug in J. Evol. Biol. that has some very interesting results relating to the way in which sexual selection is (mis)measured. Now out click here

NOVEMBER 2009

  • MAJOR NEWS: We won two ANU Media Awards (Highest International Impact & Best Response to a Media Release) for our work promoting Richard's Biol Letter paper on 'safe sex' in fiddler crabs.

  • Lots of media interest in Richard's paper in Biol Letts. Over 350 Online News sites have covered the story (Nov 6).

  • Isobel B has had her fourth paper on the 'dear enemy' effect accepted (Anim Behav). Nice.

  • Sophie, Brian, Isobel & Richard are now all up in Darwin doing field projects under Pat Backwell's super supervision. It is quiet back here in Canberra....

OCTOBER 2009

  • Isobel B has had her third paper accepted (Behav Ecol Sociobiol).

  • Richard M has had his fifth paper accepted (Biol Letts), is coauthor on Isobel's paper and has a sixth in re-review (Behav Ecol)

  • Sophie C is now doing a crab project in Darwin supervised by Pat Backwell. She has finished data collection for her first cricket project (and yes, that is the sound of someone drawing a long breath of relief).

  • MAJOR NEWS: Andrew K has his first paper published (Biol Lett). Now that the sun is shining he starts fieldwork for his Honours. Among other media, this work was covered by Nature.

  • Brian M is a co-author on Andrew's paper. He has now finished his first two Gambusia projects and will soon be in Darwin working on a fiddler crab project with Pat Backwell. He is also familiarizing himself with animation software on his funky new Mac laptop.

  • James D completed yet another 24 hour team mountain bike race.   The man is unstoppable.

  • Jean D is making the final touches to the third data chapter of her PhD. It is looking good.

  • Martin E is mutating crickets and beetles....someone has to do it.

  • Megan H is back from fieldwork on frogs in Queensland, has completed organising the Australasian Evolution Society Meeting in her role as Treasurer and general trouble shooter, and just submitted a substantial review on the role of species interactions in  speciation that you will all soon be reading.

  • Michael J is sitting at his desk wondering why he has started using emoticons in his emails : (   He will be in Darwin in December : )   he is also gearing up for the thrill of writing an ARC grant.. watch this space for tears, sweat and more tears.

  • Hanna Kokko has settled into a flat in Kingston, bought out Ikea, set up her office and is now in official sabbatical mode. Welcome

  • Hope Klug has been visiting and has just submitted a revised version of a review on measuring sexual selection to J Evol Biol. It is a really interesting paper - look out for it.  Welcome and, so soon already,  a safe trip home.

MAY 2009

  • Richard M has submitted his paper on seasonal preferences in fiddler crabs

  • Isobel B has submitted her paper on female mimicry and claw loss in fiddler crabs

  • Andrew K & Brian M have submitted their paper on gonopodium size and female choice

  • Jess B has handed in her Honours thesis. Congratulations

APRIL 2009

  • April 31 Brian M will be celebrating his 29th birthday. Happy Birthday from everyone in J-lab.

  • Congratulations to Isobel B and Richard M who have both been awarded Australian Geographic Research Grants

  • Congratulations to Martin E , who has just had a paper accepted by Heredity [ Edvardsson M, Hunt J, Moore AJ, Moore PJ. 2009.  Quantitative genetic variation in the control of ovarian apoptosis under different environments. Heredity ( in press)]

  • MAJOR NEWS: Megan H has just been awarded the R.A. Fisher Award from the International Society for the Study of Evolution. Congratulations from all of us to Megan on this very impressive achievement.

  • Jess B is in the final birth pangs of delivering her Honours thesis. Nearly there Jess, only a few more weeks.

  • Hanna Kokko has been awarded a Sabbatical fellowship from the Academy of Finland and will be based at the ANU in 2009-2010 (arrival date to be confirmed). A day of sandals with socks will be organized to welcome her.

  • Isobel B has had her poster short listed for the ANU ResearchFest. Well done Isobelle. You can vote for Isobelle's poster by going here. Vote early and vote often.

  • Richard M has produced the first paper from the trip to Mozambique to be accepted for publication (Milner RNC, Detto T, Jennions MD, Backwell PRY. 2009. Hunting and predation in a fiddler crab.  Journal of Ethology)

  • Jean D has just successfully completed her final field experiment for her PhD and is now writing up her thesis for submission this year. Keep at it.

  • Brian M has just completed his first year PhD review and it is now confirmed that he will be going on do a PhD. (No surprise, but another red tape hoop jumped through). He is also approaching the end of a very long study on polyandry and sexual conflict.

  • Andrew K, along with Brian,  has just completed an experiment looking at female choice for genitalia in Gambusia. They have found some very cool results that are now being written up. The paper will be submitted this month.

  • Sophie C has just arrived in the group as a new PhD student. She will be working on both crickets and fish. We all wish her a happy and productive time here. (Sophie will have a web page soon...)

  • Ruth Archer is a PhD student in the lab of Dr John Hunt (U. Exeter in Cornwall). She will be with us for most of April. Welcome Ruth!

  • Cover Photo for Backwell PRY, Matsumasa M, Double M, Roberts A, Murai M, Keogh JS, Jennions MD. 2007. What are the consequences of being left clawed in a predominantly right clawed fiddler crab?  Proceedings of the Royal Society Series B 274: 2723-2729 [PDF]]

Cover Photo

 



For more on fiddler crabs, check out the website of Pat Backwell

 

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