Week 6

Oct. 4th

Cryptic Choice in a Sex-role reversed species

DISUCSSION DAY QUESTION TO BE POSTED SOON!

Pipefish and related species provide rare examples of extreme male
parental care in that the males are actually "pregnant". A recent publication repots controlled breeding experiments that suggest the conflicting interest between female, male such that the male exhibits "cryptic male choice. The primary publication is in Nature. This journal often reports potentially exciting results that are not yet fully supported by the data. Therefore, as a critical reader, it is your job to detmine which aspects of the data support this claim and determine the necessary set of experiments that would be needed.

DOWNLOAD the actual Discussion topics

Read (reguired) both the primary research report and the review:
Paczolt, K.A. & Jones, A.G. 2010 Post-copulatory sexual selection and sexual conflict in the evolution of male pregnancy. Nature 463:404 - 406.
Berglund 2010 Pregnant fathers in charge Nature 464:364-365.

 

Oct. 6th

Mating Strategies and Alternative Reproductive Tactics

We will examine causal mechanism and functional implications of species specific Reproductive strategies and also address the issue of "Alternative Reproductive Tactics". That is when not all individuals in a species pursue the same strategy. When does this happen, why does this happen, and how does this happen.

READ:
Nair and Young 2006 Mammalian monogamy is not controlled by a single gene Physiology 21:146-15.
Gross, M.R. (1996) Alternative reproductive strategies and tactics: diversity within sexes. TREE 11:92-98.