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Evolutionary Ecology Laboratory
Research projects in the Evolutionary Ecology Lab address questions of adaptation and life-history evolution in a wide variety of organisms. Three project areas are under active investigation:
These projects are described in further detail in the links above.
Evolution of parental care in leeches
Evolutionary biologists and behavioural ecologists have developed a rich body of theory to explain the evolution of different amounts and patterns of parental care (recent reviews in Clutton-Brock 1991; Mock and Parker 1996). Much of this theory is highly mathematical and derives from Hamilton's (1964) fundamental insights on inclusive fitness. Numerous empirical studies have tested and expanded the theory, but these tests focus overwhelmingly on vertebrates. Does this understanding of parental care, shaped by vertebrate models, apply equally well to phylogenetically and ecologically distant organisms? The Euhirudinea (leeches), a worldwide group of annelid worms, includes one family, the Glossiphoniidae, whose species make parental investments that range from brooding on external substrates to feeding of offspring held in a marsupial-like pouch: essentially, 'fish-to-mammal' variation. The glossiphoniids allow us to revisit a great deal of conventional understanding: Does father-mother conflict over the provision of care occur in simultaneous hermaphrodites? How strong is sibling competition in a clutch of ectotherms with indeterminate growth? What determines clutch size in each breeding attempt?
In 2001, three researchers from the School of Biological Sciences began a collaboration to study the evolution of parental care and other life-history traits in glossiphoniid leeches. Dr Fred Govedich, who recently completed a phylogenetic reconstruction of the Euhirudinea of Australia and Oceania, is working with Dr Martin Burd and Assoc. Prof. Alan Lill, and several Honours undergraduate students, to quantify the costs and benefits of different kinds of parental care, to study temperature and dissolved oxygen effects on growth and maturation, and to determine population genetic structure in the wild, using a variety of glossiphoniid species.
Background information
- Clutton-Brock, T.H. 1991.The Evolution of Parental Care. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey.
- Mock, D.W., and G.A. Parker. 1998. The Evolution of Sibling Rivalry. Oxford Series in Ecology and Evolution, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.
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