The Wedell group: l-r Tom Price, Zenobia Lewis, and Fleur Champion de Crespigny.

Group work in the lab

Research

Research projects

Evolution of female multiple mating - Why females of nearly all animals tend to mate with more than one male (polyandry) remains a pressing question for evolutionary biology. I am examining the direct and indirect benefits to females of polyandry. Males of many insects provide nutritional donations at mating. The consequences of male donations are explored in butterflies and bush-crickets. In other species, females may exercise post-copulatory choice to avoid using sperm of related males to reduce the cost of inbreeding.

Selfish genetic elements and sexual selection - Selfish genetic elements (SGEs), such as transposable elements, segregation distorters and maternally inherited symbionts are found in all living organisms where they can cause reproductive incompatibilities, feminization, and killing of sons and sperm resulting in sex ratio distortion. I am looking at the interactions between SGEs and adaptive female mating patterns:

1. Females may mate multiply to avoid using sperm from males carrying SGEs, by promoting sperm competition as a means to swamp SGE-carrying sperm. I am examining the impact of SGEs on male fertility in species of flies: Drosophila pseudoobscura (X-linked meiotic driver genes causing female biased sex ratios) and D. melanogaster and D. simulans (the cytoplasmic maternally inherited bacterium Wolbachia causing reduced hatching success, CI).

2. CI-inducing Wolbachia has the potential to affect the population dynamics of their host via reduced offspring production. In collaboration with Steve Sait (Leeds) and Zenobia Lewis (Liverpool), we are examining this possibility in Ephestia kuehniella moths.

3. I am also investigating the consequences of sex ratio distorting endosymbionts in butterfly populations. Male-killing Wolbachia has dramatic impact on the mating system in the butterfly Hypolimnas bolina across Pacific Islands, which vary in frequency of male killers (in collaboration with Greg Hurst at Liverpool). In Australian Eurema hecabe butterflies Wolbachia feminises genetic males and convert them into functional females (collaboration with Darrell Kemp at Macquarie University).

Sexual selection and sexual conflict - Female multiple mating creates a conflict of interests between the sexes, since males are selected to attempt to manipulate each female he mates with into putting as much of her resources into his offspring even if this lowers her overall reproductive output. Sexual conflict has profound implications for our understanding of numerous areas of evolutionary biology including sexual selection, sex determination and speciation. I am pursuing three lines of research:

1. Sexually antagonistic (SA) alleles are genes that are advantageous to one sex but detrimental when expressed in the other. If sex-linked, SA alleles can accumulate even when the advantage to one sex is less than the cost to the other. Recent research has revealed most genes are differentially expressed in male and female metazoans, indicating many loci are SA. The importance of sex-linkage and differential gene expression for SA alleles is examined in various butterflies and moths, where females are the heterogametic (XY) sex. Sex-linkage of sexually selected traits are frequent in this insect group.

2. In D. melanogaster, a transposable element is inserted into a cytochrome P450 gene (Cyp6g1 gene) conferring DDT resistance by upregulating gene expression. It also causes females to pack eggs with more RNA, increasing egg survival.  However there are sexually antagonistic effects of the allele because in males, up-regulation of Cyp6g1 can decrease male mating-success and alter male aggression. Recently, new TE insertions and duplications into of Cyp6g1 have been discovered.  These are associated with large sex differences in DDT resistance, but we do not understand why. Together with David Hosken and Richard ffrench-Constant (Cornwall) I am exploiting  this unique opportunity to  examine the impact of multiple TE insertions into the promoter region of a single gene with large SA effects.

3. Males frequently transfer a range of accessory gland proteins in the ejaculate that manipulate female reproductive physiology. These molecules are rapidly evolving yet seem to have cross-reactivity across insects. Together with David Hosken and Richard ffrench-Constant (Cornwall) I am examining the hypothesis that male insects may be exploiting a conserved physiological pathway regulating female physiology that is shared by insects.

Research grants

• 2011 NERC
  Polyandry and sex ratio drive
• 2008 NERC
  Selfish genetic elements and population viability: the impact of temperature and sexual selection
• 2006 NERC
  Investigating an ongoing selective sweep: the dynamics and consequences of the spread of male-killer suppression in the butterfly Hypolimnas bolina
• 2006 The Royal Society
  Summer studentship: Sex-ratio distortion and sperm production in flies: a new molecular technique
• 2005 NERC
  Sheffield molecular genetics facility: Sex-ratio drive and sperm competitive success in Drosophila pseudoobscura
• 2005 ESF
  Parasitic bacteria-host evolutionary interactions mechanisms and implications
• 2004 Leverhulme Trust
  Parasitic bacteria, sexual selection and population dynamics
• 2004 NERC
  Causes and consequences of geographic variation in a host-Wolbachia interaction
• 2004 NSF
  Tracking Wolbachia-induced evolution: sex-ratio distortion and sexual selection in pacific island Hypolimnas bolina (Lepidoptera)
• 2004 Leverhulme Trust
  Is multiple mating a female strategy to avoid inbreeding?
• 2004 NERC
  Co-evolutionary interactions between female mating frequency and selfish genetic elements
• 2002 The Royal Society
  Short visit grant: Polyandry as a defence against costs of inbreeding in the field cricket Teleogryllus oceanicus.
• 2002 NERC
  Determinants of reproductive rates: sexual antagonism and environmental adaptation

Publications

Key publications | Publications by category | Publications by year

No publications found

External Engagement and Impact

Awards/Honorary fellowships

Royal Society Wolfson Merit Award (2011 -)

Committee/panel activities

Elected Member of EMBO (2014)

President Elect International Society for Behavioral Ecology (2012 - present)

Treasurer - Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour (2006-2012)

Member Faculty of 1000 (2004 - present)

Royal Society International Exchanges Scheme panel (2011 - present)

External expert MOLECO panel, the Academy of Finland (2010 - present)

Councillor European Society for Evolutionary Biology (2009 - present)

Trustee of the Royal Entomological Society (2009- 2013)

Councillor International Society for Behavioral Ecology (2002-2006)

Royal Society Rosalind Franklin Award Committee (2006-2008)

Royal Society Hooke Committee (2007-2009)

Non–North American Vice President of the Society for the Study of Evolution (2009)

LAPBIAT selection committee (EU-Finland) (2007-2010)

Member of the Royal Society International Travel Grants Panel (2009-2011)

Member of the Zoological Zoociety of London Scientific Awards Committee (2011 - present)

Editorial responsibilities

Associate Editor, Behavioral Ecology & Sociobiology (2003 - present)

Editorial Board, Behavioral Ecology (2011 - present)

Editorial Board, Evolution (2006-2009)

I recently helped compile a special edition of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences (Jan 2013).

Invited lectures

Given >20 invited conference presentations and seminars in th UK and abroad since 2008, including key note speaker at 13th International Behavioral Ecology Congress, Perth Australia (2010), plenary at Evolution in Norman, Oklahoma USA (2011), and 'Big Questions in Behavioral Biology', Neuchatel, Switzerland (2012) 

Media Coverage

Research sheds light on benefits of multiple mates

Promiscuous females are trying to avoid selfish genes

Does Promiscuity Prevent Extinction?

Professor Nina Wedell in the field

Teaching

Programme director MSc Evolutionary and Behavioural Ecology.

Undergraduate

• BIO3139 Mating System Biology

Postgraduate

• BIOM4017 Evolution and Behavioural Ecology
• BIOM4018 (Approaches in Evolutionary and Behavioural Ecology

Modules

2023/24

Information not currently available

Professor Nina Wedell with Dr Tom Price in the lab

Supervision / Group

Postdoctoral researchers

Postgraduate researchers

Alumni