Contributions by role
Contributions by subject area
Geoff A Parker
Summary
I study the evolutionary biology of adaptive strategies in reproduction and sexuality, behaviour, and life histories. My early work on the dung fly mating system strove to make detailed quantitative analyses of behaviour patterns in terms of selective benefits of strategies played by individuals, contrary to the prevailing group/species selection bias of that time (1960s and 1970s). My work involves constructing theoretical models based on Darwinian natural selection to make predictions that can be tested empirically. Much of it relates to cases where fitness payoffs of given strategies depend on the strategies currently ‘played’ by other members of the population. My most important contributions in evolutionary biology include the leading theory for why there are two sexes, the first formal analysis and definition of sexual conflict, the identification and development of sperm competition and post-copulatory sexual selection, and theory of contest behaviour, animal distributions and search strategies. My work currently centres on the evolution of complex life cycles in helminths and on development of an evolutionary theory for sequential transitions in sexual strategy (i.e the ‘sexual cascade’, the sequence of consequential evolutionary events flowing from the evolution of sexual reproduction and syngamy and that lead to the rise of Darwinian pre-copulatory sexual selection and intensification of sexual conflict).
Animal Behavior Ecology Evolutionary Studies Genetics Zoology