Overview

I am a behavioural and evolutionary ecologist with a broad range of research interests including the evolution of sociality, cooperation and conflict, cognition, and sex ratios. Much of my research involves testing the effect of environmental, social and genetic factors on the expression and evolution of behavioural traits. I take an integrative approach to my research testing proximate and ultimate hypotheses using experimental, genetic and theoretical methods in both the field and laboratory.

My current research investigates the evolution of social behaviour. I am testing hypotheses based around inclusive fitness, the evolution of cooperation and the selective pressures that lead individuals to sacrifice investment in their own direct fitness to help raise the offspring of relatives. Questions driving this research include: Why cooperate? What trade-offs and conflicts occur amongst group members? What environmental, social and genetic factors affect social phenotype? Are social traits plastic or canalized? What strategies do individuals use to gain the greatest fitness advantage from living in social groups?

The model system for my current research is the primitively social sweat bee Halictus rubicundus. In sweat bees, there is little dimorphism between queens and workers and workers are able to reproduce independently (unlike the sterile worker castes that occur in obligately eusocial species such as honeybees). Furthermore, both social and solitary nesting tactics occur between and within sweat bee populations making them an ideal model system for examining the effects of environment on social phenotype and exploring the evolution of sociality.

Qualifications

• 2018 PhD in Zoology, University of Sydney
• 2011 First Class BA (Hons.) in Zoology, University of Tasmania

Career

• 2019: ongoing ERC Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Exeter
• 2018 Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Australian National University

Research group links

• Animal Behaviour