Sexual selection is a powerful evolutionary process arising when individuals differ in their reproductive output due to their ability to secure mates. Some of these differences may be due to variation in the “display” traits of members of one sex (typically males) used to attract members of the opposite sex (typically females). Historically, most studies of mate choice have focuses on variation those male traits subject to selection by females and have overlooked the important role of variation in female mate preferences. My lab investigates the sources of female preference variation and its effects on patterns of evolutionary change. 

I am open to supervise motivated graduate and undergraduate students in the areas of evolutionary genetics and behavioural ecology, in the context of sexual selection. Please contact me for more information.

• HME Tennant, EE Sonser and TAF Long. “Hemiclonal analysis of interacting phenotypes in male and female Drosophila melanogaster.” BMC Evolutionary Biology 14 (2014).
• TAF Long, L Rowe and AF Agrawal “The Effects of Selective History and Environmental Heterogeneity on Inbreeding Depression in Experimental Populations of Drosophila melanogaster.” The American Naturalist (2013).
• TAF Long, AF Agrawal and L Rowe “The effect of sexual selection on offspring fitness depends on the nature of genetic variation.” Current Biology (2012).
• TAF Long, A Pischedda, AD Stewart and WR Rice “A cost of sexual attractiveness to high-fitness females.” PLoS Biology (2009).

• Laurier researchers receive $1.8 million in funding from Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council
• Fruit fly brothers show kindness to each other but not to sisters in Laurier student study