SCIENCE AT THE SHINE DOME canberra 6 - 8 may 2009

New Fellows Seminar

Thursday, 7 May 2009

Professor Leigh Simmons FAA
ARC Federation Fellow, Centre for Evolutionary Biology, University of Western Australia, Perth

Following the award of a PhD from the University of Nottingham UK, Leigh Simmons held junior and senior research fellowships at the University of Liverpool (1987 to 1995), before moving to Australia to take up a senior research fellowship at the University of Western Australia (UWA). He won the Zoological Society of London’s Scientific Medal in 1997 for ‘contributions to insect behavioural ecology’ and in 2008, the International Congresses of Entomology’s Certificate of Distinction, for ‘outstanding contributions to entomology’. He has been engaged in research on sexual selection and the evolutionary biology of reproduction for 25 years. During that time he has published over 180 refereed articles, and authored a monograph on sperm competition published in 2001. In 2004 Leigh established the Centre for Evolutionary Biology at UWA, a facility dedicated to excellence in research and
research training.

Sperm competition and sexual selction

Darwin is mostly known for his theory of natural selection as a mechanism of speciation. However, he also argued that sexual selection via male contest competition and female choice would be a powerful selective force driving evolutionary diversity. What he did not realise was that sexual selection would continue after mating, because females typically mate with several different males who’s sperm must compete for fertilisations. Leigh’s talk will show that sperm competition is a potent evolutionary driving force, shaping much of male behaviour, morphology and reproductive physiology.