Göran Arnqvist
Professor

Research Projects

My major research interest is evolutionary ecology, broadly defined to include the interactions between behaviour, morphology, physiology and genetics on one hand and the environment on the other. Many current research projects in my laboratory focus, in one way or another, on understanding the causes and consequences of male-female coevolution.

A large body of our research revolves, directly or indirectly, around the causes and consequences of conflicts of interest between the sexes. Such conflicts can generate "arms races" between the sexes, known as sexually antagonistic coevolution. Our empirical work is done primarily with a variety of different insects. In collaboration with researchers in USA, Canada, Australia and England, we aim both at characterizing various male-female conflicts, and at understanding the far-reaching consequences and coevolutionary dynamics of such conflicts. Below are pictures of three of our model systems: a Sabethine mosquitoe where both sexes carry leg ornaments, a male and a female water strider engaged in a premating “struggle” and the spiny copulatory organ of a male seed beetle.




Every animal cell contains two types of genetic material: genes in the nucleus and genes in other cellular elements. Foremost among the latter are the mitochondria, that carries its own genome (mtDNA) which encodes for many important products that relate, for example, to the energy metabolism of the cell. MtDNA does not follow the same evolutionary “rules” as does nuclear DNA, chiefly because it is maternally inherited and does not recombine, and it has long been considered selectively neutral. However, recent research in our laboratory has demonstrated that mtDNA variation across and within populations is linked to important phenotypic traits such as sperm morphology, development rate and even fitness.



More than a century after Darwin, our understanding of the process by which new species are formed is still incomplete. We are aiming at illuminating the processes involved both in the evolution of reproductive isolation (speciation) and in evolution leading to extinction of lineages. In particular, we are interested in understanding the evolution of "cryptic" reproductive isolation that occurs after mating, so that females may mate with males of both their own and other species, but yet will produce no or little hybrid offspring.

Past and current members of the lab!
Standing from left: Martin Edvardsson, Göran Arnqvist, Tina Nilsson.
Sitting from left: Urban Friberg, Claudia Fricke, Mari Katvala.
Inserted are Sandra South (top left), Johanna Rönn (bottom left), Alexei Maklakov (bottom right), Trine Bilde (mid right) and Damian Dowling (top right).

PhD STUDENTS:
Sandra South (PhD student); The evolution of ornaments in Sabethine mosquitoes

POST-DOCS & VISITING SCIENTISTS
Simone Immler (Univ. of Sheffield, from 2009); Post doc – The evolution of sperm form and function

FORMER MEMBERS OF THE LAB...
Ted Morrow Worked with sexual conflict, speciation and bed bug mating systems as a post doc in my lab 2001-2003. After a post doc in Bill Rice's lab in Santa Barbara, Ted now holds a research professorship here at the University of Uppsala.
José A. Andrés Worked with sexual conflict and mating system evolution in insects as a Marie-Curie finanzed post doc in my lab 1999-2001. Now holds a faculty position at the University of Saskatchewan.
Locke Rowe (Univ. of Toronto, Canada); Visiting scientist on sabbatical (2000-2001) - here is his homepage.
Tina Nilsson (former PhD student; graduated 2004); Polyandry and the evolution of reproductive divergence in insects.
Martin Edvardsson (former PhD student; graduated 2005); Cryptic female choice and male mating behaviour. Now holds a ARC Post-doctoral Fellowship with Michael Jennions at ANU.
Urban Friberg (former PhD student, graduated 2006); Sexual conflict and sexual selection. Now holds a post-doc with Bill Rice at UC Santa Barbara.
Claudia Fricke (former PhD student, graduated 2006); The evolution of postmating prezygotic isolation: patterns and processes. Now holds a post-doc with Tracey Chapman at the University of East Anglia.
Alexei Maklakov Worked with sexual conflict, life histories and the evolution of senescence as a Marie-Curie post-doc in my lab 2004-2006. Now holds a research professorship at the University of Uppsala.
Damian Dowling Worked with the role of mtDNA in sperm competition as a Wennergren Foundation post-doc in my lab 2004-2007. Now holds a fellowship at Monash University.
Mari Katvala Worked with male-female coevolution in Bruchid beetles as a Finnish Academy post-doc in my lab 2004-2007.
Johanna Rönn (former PhD student, graduated 2009); Male-female coevolution in Bruchid beetles. Now holds a post-doc fellowship at Uppsala University.
Trine Bilde Worked with inbreeding and genetic compatibility as a Marie-Curie post doc (2006-2009). Now holds a professorship at the University of Aarhus.


Please click HERE to reach the Dept. of Animal Ecology

Click HERE to reach the Evolutionary Biology Centre

My address: Department of Animal Ecology, Evolutionary Biology Centre, Norbyvägen 18D,
University of Uppsala, SE-752 36 Uppsala, Sweden
Phone: +46-18-4712645
Fax: +46-18-4716484
E-mail: Goran.Arnqvist@ebc.uu.se


5 SELECTED PUBLICATIONS (Click HERE for a full list of publications with downloads)

Arnqvist, G. and Rowe, L. (2002). Antagonistic coevolution between the sexes in a group of insects. Nature 415:787-789.

Arnqvist, G. and Kirkpatrick, M. (2005) The evolution of infidelity in socially monogamous passerines: the strength of direct and indirect selection on extrapair copulation behavior in females. American Naturalist 165:S26-S37.

Rönn, J, Katvala, M and Arnqvist, G (2007) Coevolution between harmful male genitalia and female resistance in seed beetles. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sciences 104:10921-10925.

Hotzy, C. and Arnqvist, G. (2009) Sperm competition favors harmful males in seed beetles. Current Biology 19:404-407.

Bilde, T., Foged, A., Schilling, N. and Arnqvist G (2009) Postmating sexual selection favors males that sire offspring with low fitness. Science 324:1705-1706.

Our book on sexual conflict is available from Princeton University Press:

Arnqvist, G. and Rowe, L. 2005. Sexual Conflict. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.

Follow this link for information and ordering!

Some files which might be useful or of interest:
Download a PDF file of the list of contents and the preface here.
Download a PDF file of the introductory chapter here.
Download an End Note Library file with the complete list of references from the book here.
Download copies of published reviews: Nature, Trends in Ecology and Evolution, Animal Behaviour, Journal of Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, BioScience and Annals of the Entomological Society of America.



Click HERE for a full list of publications with downloads


- Web page created and maintained (updated Sept 2009) by Göran Arnqvist -