DPhil. Student

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Rebecca Dean

Rebecca Dean

Details

Name: Rebecca Dean
Position: DPhil. Student
Email: rebecca.dean@zoo.ox.ac.uk

Autobiography

I studied my BSc in Biological Sciences at Exeter University, and my MSc in Integrative Biosciences at Oxford University. During my Masters I worked with Ben Sheldon and Louise Rowe on blue tit nest defence and offspring sex ratios. I came back to the EGI in 2005 to start my PhD, this time collaborating with Tom Pizzari. I have also worked for WildCRU studying population dynamics in water voles, and social behaviour, mate choice and co-operative breeding in badgers.

Research Activities

Female fowl can eject sperm immediately after copulation, thus providing a mechanism that has the potential to exert cryptic female choice. This behaviour is thought to be differential with respect to male social status. I am interested in the plasticity of this behaviour when females experience highly polyandrous situations. I am also interested in sperm senescence and am conducting experiments to study the effect of male ageing, male sexual rest and female sperm storage on sperm quality.

Selected Recent Papers

Dean, R., Bonsall, M. B. & Pizzari, T. 2007. Aging and Sexual conflict. Science 316, 383-384. | Read abstract/paper online

Pizzari, T., Dean, R., Pacey, A., Moore, H. & Bonsall, M. B. 2008. The evolutionary ecology of pre- and post-meiotic sperm senescence. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 23, 131-140. | Read abstract/paper online