 |
 |
|
|
|
|
 |
James L. Gould |
My current work concentrates on the evolution of female-choice preferences.
There are any number of hypotheses to account for why females use certain
cues and not others to select mates, and most are neither mutually exclusive
nor testable. My approach has been to look at female preferences in species
without female choice, to see if (when allowed to choose) females have biases
in the absence of the opportunity to express them. I have concentrated on
a family of live-bearing fish which includes mollies, guppies, mosquitofish,
platys, and swordtails. I find that females in male-contest or male-scramble
species nevertheless have strong preferences —preferences that correspond
to the male dimorphisms that have evolved in more derived species in their
genus. The biases appear to be associated with recognizing signs of health
prior to making choices about which fish to school with. The male dimorphisms
that have evolved later appear to be supernormal stimuli that exploit these
biases. More generally, I am interested in many aspects of animal communication, navigation, planning, learning, and innate recognition. |
||
|
|
|
| Tel 609.258.3872 Fax 609.258.2172 Email: gould 'at' princeton [dot] edu |
Curriculum
Vitae (pdf) | Teaching | Publication
Abstracts (pdf) | |
 |
© 2007 The Trustees of Princeton University Web page feedback: amyb 'at' Princeton [dot] edu | Last update: September 26, 2007 |
|