Postdoctoral Researcher

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Rebecca Dean

Dr. Rebecca Dean

Details

Name: Dr. Rebecca Dean
Position: Postdoctoral Researcher
Email: rebecca.dean@zoo.ox.ac.uk

Autobiography

I studied Biological Sciences at Exeter University (1999-2002) and Integrative Biosciences at Oxford University (2003-2004). After working as a research assistant on badger social behaviour I started a DPhil in the EGI (2005-2009). Under the supervision of Tom Pizzari, I studied male ageing and sexual selection in the feral fowl Gallus gallus domesticus. I am now a Leverhulme funded post-doc and am developing my interests in sexual selection, using molecular tools to understand sperm competition dynamics.

Research Activities

My broad interests in sexual selection and senescence focus on how male ageing affects male reproductive performance, both pre- and post-insemination. I am currently working on developing a molecular technique (in collaboration with Judith Mank and Tom Pizzari) that can be used to study sperm competition dynamics by quantifying the relative contribution of sperm from competing males that successfully reach the egg.

Selected Recent Papers

Dean, R, Cornwallis, CK, Lovlie, H, Worley, K., Richardson, DS, Pizzari, T. 2010 Male reproductive senescence coauses potential for sexual conflict over mating. Current Biology 20, 1192-1196 | Read abstract/paper online

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