Current Member - Dr. Tobias Uller
Faculty Member: Departmental Lecturer in Animal Diversity .
Dr. Tobias Uller
Details
Name: Dr. Tobias Uller
Position: Departmental Lecturer in Animal Diversity
Email: tobias.uller@zoo.ox.ac.uk
Autobiography
I graduated in Animal Ecology at Göteborg University, Sweden, in 2000, went on to do a PhD in 2001 and finished in 2004. Between 2005 and 2007 I was a Wenner-Gren Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Wollongong, Australia, where I continued to work on the evolutionary ecology of lizards and amphibians with a specific focus on sex allocation, sex determination, and maternal effects. I joined the EGI and the University of Oxford in late 2007 when taking up a Departmental Lectureship in Animal Diversity.
Research Activities
My research interest lies in the interface between development, ecology and evolution. I attempt to explore the links between environmental variation, phenotypic plasticity, and selection in natural populations to address their consequences for ecological and evolutionary processes. Two main areas of research concern the evolution of parental effects and sex allocation, i.e., resource allocation to sons versus daughters. Most of my work is conducted on European and Australian frogs and lizards.
My research is currently funded by the Australian Research Council and the Royal Society of London and addresses a range of topics including:
- Evolution of developmental plasticity and maternal effects
- Phenotypic plasticity and local adaptation
- sperm competition and sex allocation
- Evolution of sex determining mechanisms
- sperm competition and post-copulatory processes
- Population differentiation, inbreeding and disease resistance in amphibians
Other Information
I am a Wenner-Gren Fellow and a Fulbright Fellow. I received the 2009 Christopher Barnard Award for Outstanding Contributions by a Young Investigator.
Selected Recent Papers
Uller, T. & Badyaev, A. V. Evolution of "determinants" in sex determination: A novel hypothesis for the origin of environmental contingencies in avian sex bias. Seminars in Cell & Developmental Biology, in press.
Badyaev, A. V & Uller, T. Parental effects in ecology and evolution: Mechanisms, processes, and implications. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, in press.
Uller, T., While, G. M., Wapstra, E., Warner, D. A., Goodman, B. A., Schwarzkopf, L., Langkilde, T., Doughty, P., Radder, R. S., Rohr, D. H., Bull, C. M., Shine, R., & Olsson, M. 2009. Evaluation of offspring size-number invariants in twelve species of lizard. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 22: 143-151.
Uller, T. Developmental plasticity and the evolution of parental effects. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 23: 432-438.
Uller, T. &Olsson, M. Multiple paternity in reptiles: patterns and processes. Molecular Ecology 17: 2566-2580.
Sagvik, J., Uller, T. &Olsson, M. A genetic component to resistance to fungal infection in frog embryos. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 275: 1393-1396.
Uller, T., Pen, I., Wapstra, E., Beukeboom, L. &Komdeur, J. 2007. Evolution of sex ratios and sex-determining systems. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 22: 292-297.
Uller, T., Astheimer, L. &Olsson, M. 2007. Consequences of maternal yolk testosterone for offspring development and survival: experimental test in a lizard. Functional Ecology 21: 544-551.
Uller, T. &Olsson, M. 2006. No seasonal sex ratio shift despite sex-specific fitness returns of hatching date in a lizard with genotypic sex determination. Evolution 60: 2131-2136.
Uller, T. 2006. Sex-specific sibling interactions and offspring fitness in vertebrates: patterns and implications for maternal sex ratios. Biological Reviews 81: 207-217.
Uller, T., Massot, M., Richard, M., Lecomte, J. & Clobert, J. 2004. Long-lasting fitness consequences of prenatal sex ratio in a viviparous lizard. Evolution 58: 2511-2516.
Uller, T. 2003. Viviparity as a constraint on sex ratio evolution. Evolution 57: 927-931.
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