Evolution of gamete morphology, reproductive strategies, and life histories; sperm-female and sperm-egg interactions; sexual conflict; reproductive isolating mechanisms
Funding:
• National Science Foundation (DEB-0315008)
Sperm-female coevolution: mechanisms, models and theoretical implications
Currently, the primary interests of the Pitnick Lab include: (1) understanding how and why postcopulatory sexual selection drives evolutionary diversification of sperm and female reproductive tract traits, (2) exploring the extent to which ejaculate-female incompatibility contributes to reproductive isolation and species formation, (3) using comparative methods to examine the relationship between reproductive and life history evolution, (4) the evolution of sperm cooperation, (5) the evolution of genitalic form and (6) the causes and consequences of variation in brain size.
Pitnick Lab at Syracuse University: http://biology.syr.edu/pitnickresearch.html
Blanckenhorn, W. U., Dixon, A. F. G., Fairbairn D. J., Gilbert, P., van der Linde, K., Meier, R., Nylin, S., Pitnick, S., Schoff, C., Signorelli, M., and C. Wiklund. 2007. Proximate causes of Rensch's rule: Does sexual size dimorphism in arthropods result from sex differences in development time? The American Naturalist, 169: 245-257.
Amitin, E. G. and S. Pitnick. 2007. Influence of developmental environment on male- and female-mediated sperm precedence in Drosophila melanogaster. Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 20: 381-91.
Bjork, A. and S. Pitnick. 2006. Intensity of sexual selection along the road to isogamy. Nature 441: 742-745. [PDF]
Pitnick, S., Jones, K., and G. Wilkinson. 2006. Mating system and brain size in bats. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 273: 719-724. [PDF]
Pattarini, J. M., W. T. Starmer, A. Bjork, and S. Pitnick. 2006. Mechanisms underlying the sperm quality advantage in Drosophila melanogaster. Evolution 60: 2064-80.
Miller, G. T. and S. Pitnick. 2002. Sperm-female coevolution in Drosophila. Science, 298: 1230-1233. [PDF]
