Dr Liam Dougherty

Research Overview

My big research question is: how does the environment influence animal reproduction? I currently investigate this in several ways, looking at a range of environmental factors, including the social environment (e.g. the presence of rivals), the biotic environment (the number of predators or parasites), and the abiotic anvironment (e.g. temperature); and a range of reproductive traits, including mate choice behaviour, sexual signalling behaviour, sexual ornaments, and sperm and ejaculate allocation. However, my research interest also broadly covers topics relating to animal reproduction, sexual selection and sexual conflict, and behavioural ecology.

Current and past projects include:

Climate change and infertility
- How will rising temperatures impact male and female fertility?
- Does female mate choice exacerbate or mitigate temperature-induced fertility loss in males?

The evolution of mate choice
- How does the environment influence how choosy animals are during mating?
- Are animals choosier when they are in good condition?
- How much do animals copy the choices of their rivals?
- How does the design of our experiments affect how animals behaviour during mate choice trials?

Sexual signals
- Does sexual signalling behaviour honestly reflect male condition or stress?
- Do sexual ornaments indicate male parasite load?

The evolution and function of animal genitalia
- How do females evolve to reduce injury from males with harmful genitalia?
- How does the size of a seed beetle's penis relate to his fertilisation ability?
- How do females control sperm transfer after mating?