On a summer night in your backyard, among the chorusing male crickets, a female may choose to mate with the male who sings the song that most appeals to her. Such a scene is not unlike a Jane Austen novel. In the mating game of humans and other animals alike, one phenomenon is common—females are choosy about whom they mate with. Sexual selection through mate choice provides a powerful explanation for the evolution of diverse, elaborate, and sometimes, bizarre courtship phenotypes. Yet how mating preferences and mate choices evolve in the first place remains a major evolutionary puzzle.
Research in my lab focuses on the evolution of mating preferences. By transcending boundaries of traditional sub-fields, we aim to answer fundamental questions about evolution and genomics of mating preferences that will eventually help us causally link selective forces in real natural populations to variation in mating preferences to the underlying genetic, epigenetic, and genomic mechanisms. We employ an integrative approach, combining field-based behavioral ecology and lab-based quantitative genetics and genomics in our research.
Research in my lab focuses on the evolution of mating preferences. By transcending boundaries of traditional sub-fields, we aim to answer fundamental questions about evolution and genomics of mating preferences that will eventually help us causally link selective forces in real natural populations to variation in mating preferences to the underlying genetic, epigenetic, and genomic mechanisms. We employ an integrative approach, combining field-based behavioral ecology and lab-based quantitative genetics and genomics in our research.