Dissertation Research: Life History Variation in the Tetragnathidae

在自然界中，男性和女性对生殖的兴趣通常是冲突的。雌性往往比雄性在每个后代身上投入更多。因此，雌性必须谨慎地为她们的后代选择最好的父亲，而雄性可能会通过给许多雌性授精来增加他们的生殖成功。当雌性交配繁殖时，关于父子关系的冲突变得特别有趣，而这种冲突必须在女性生殖道内解决。在一组具有不同生殖形态的蜘蛛中，这项研究将探索行为和生殖道形态如何可能对父子关系产生偏见。光学显微镜和扫描电子显微镜将被用来准确地描述四个焦点分类群中的雌性生殖形态。行为分析将被用来揭示雄性和雌性如何通过操纵交配的时间、持续时间和频率、重新交配间隔、产卵时机等来影响父子关系。当雌性与多个雄性进行实验性交配时，将使用分子标记来评估父子关系。这些研究将揭示历史施加的限制和雌性和雄性可能进化的适应之间的相互作用。这是进化生物学越来越感兴趣的一个领域。

Aviles0073266In nature, male and female interests over reproduction are usually in conflict. Females tend to invest more heavily in each offspring than do males. As a result, females must carefully choose the best father for their offspring while males may increase their reproductive success by inseminating many females. Conflicts over paternity become particularly intriguing when females mate multiply and the conflict must be resolved within the female reproductive tract. In a group of spiders with diverse reproductive morphologies, this study will explore how behavior and reproductive tract morphology may bias paternity. Light and scanning electron microscopy will be used to accurately describe female reproductive morphology in four focal taxa. Behavioral analysis will be used to uncover how males and females may influence paternity by manipulating the timing, duration, and frequency of copulation, re-mating interval, oviposition timing, etc. Molecular markers will be used to assess paternity when females have been experimentally mated with multiple males.These studies will shed light on the interplay between the constraints imposed by history and the adaptations that females and males may evolve. This is an area of growing interest in evolutionary biology.