Insect biodiversity and reproductive trait evolution

Insects are an incredibly diverse, and rapidly evolving, animal taxa. Knowledge about how such biodiversity is generated is fundamental for understanding such global concerns as the maintenance of agricultural ecosystems, in which insects serve both positive and negative roles, as a food resource themselves, and as vectors of human disease. Insect systematists use a variety of morphological and genetic characters to identify species, but traits that influence reproduction seem to be some of the most rapidly evolving and species-specific traits. One such emphasis is on the complex structures of male genitalia, described as the gold standard for species definition for approximately a century. Yet one of the most challenging aspects of understanding insect biodiversity is explaining the evolutionary history of complex characters such as genitalia. Recent technology has opened up opportunities in understanding how such characters evolve and include advances in geometric morphometric tools for shape description, experimental evolution to manipulate selection pressures thought to influence complex trait evolution, laser ablation, and next generation sequencing to identify genes controlling complex traits. This project will take advantage of these new techniques to understand how reproductive traits, such as genitals, wings and pheromones, evolve at both the phenotypic and genotypic level.

This project will build on work in the Snook lab, using experimental populations of flies that have experienced different intensities of sexual selection, showing that a variety of complex traits have rapidly evolved. The aim of this PhD is to study the evolution of these traits, linking changes in phenotype and genotype, with changes in selection. The student will use the aforementioned techniques to understand how such selection drives rapid evolution of traits important in generating insect biodiversity.

To apply for this project please go to http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/postgraduate/research/apply  and follow the links.