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Evolution of female-specific color polymorphisms in damselflies

Project Abstract: 
Sexual harassment is a common evolutionary outcome of sexual conflict of interest over mating, but we know little about the fitness consequences of harassment, how females have responded to it, or how species interactions have shaped responses by both females and males. Enallagma damselflies, whose females are either green or a male-like blue, appear to have evolved as a female response to male sexual harassment. My work focuses on testing the sexual harassment hypothesis, along with the costs and benefits to females of their sexual signalling, and male responses to such signalling. Ultimately I am interested in how sexual conflict in this system could lead to speciation in this group of NA odonates, many of which have speciated relatively recently, during interglacial periods.
Investigator(s): 
Methods: 
My study species includes two groups of female polymorphic and female monomorphic species. In both types, I measure population density and harassment rates, and clutch size of females. Working with my collaborator, Tom Schultz, we measure signal reflectance of polymorphic and monomorphic species, to provide an understanding of the consequences to males, of two types of female crypsis (i.e. similarity with male signals and similarity with background). Among a variety of field experiments, we use fluorescent dusting of males and subsequent examination for dust on females to estimate harassment rates.
Funding agency: 
NSF