3 years PhD studentship: Does behaviour drive evolution? Conflict behaviour and reproduction in vertebrates
Supervisors: Dr Isabella Capellini & Dr Domhnall Jennings (Queen's University Belfast, UK)
Although behaviour is believed to be an agent of selection, few studies have demonstrated that behaviour can drive evolution. This project will test whether behaviour drives evolution focusing on social conflict in the context of reproduction. Reproductive traits, such as the structure of the mammalian placenta, are highly diverse, evolve rapidly and are supposed to be a major target of selection caused by different forms of social conflict - parent-offspring conflict, sibling competition and sexual conflict. The project will exploit diversity among species and take advantage of state of the art phylogenetic comparative methods to investigate whether behaviour drives rapid evolutionary change in reproductive traits at large comparative scale.
Full project description: