Current Member - Dr. Geoff While
Marie Curie Research Fellow
Geoff While
Details
Name: Dr. Geoff While
Position: Marie Curie Research Fellow
Email: geoffrey.while@zoo.ox.ac.uk
Autobiography
I have had a life-long interest in zoology culminating in a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Tasmania majoring in Zoology (1999-2001) followed by a first class honours degree in foraging ecology (2002). I then worked as a research associate within the mammal browsing group before beginning a PhD with Dr Erik Wapstra in late 2004. My PhD project integrated a detailed field based study with hypothesis driven experimental studies to document the causes and consequences of social organisation within an Australia lizard species, Egernia whitii. Following completion of my PhD in October 2008, I was employed as a post-doctoral research fellow on an Australian Research Council funded project (2009-2011). The aim of this project was to examine the ecological and evolutionary significance of maternal (thermal) effects and specifically the role maternal effects play in understanding key evolutionary processes (e.g., the divergence of sex determining systems). During this project I also spent time at the University of Oxford, collaborating with Tobias Uller on a project examining colonisation dynamics in the introduced wall lizard. I moved to Oxford permanently in 2011 to begin a Marie Currie Fellowship which will allow me to explore how context dependent sexual selection influences population persistence/expansion and evolutionary diversification during colonisation.
Research Activities
My main area of interest lies in behavioural and evolutionary ecology. While my general interests within this area are relatively wide, the majority of my research fits within the overriding theme of examining the links between ecologically induced short-term phenotypic change (with a particular focus on behaviour), population dynamics, and long-term evolution. My previous work has examined these links within the framework of understanding the causes and consequences of social organisation, however, the overall aim of my work is to generate research that allows for a greater connect between ecological processes and evolutionary theory. The colonisation history of the wall lizard (Podarcis muralis) offers me a unique system with which to explore these broad questions as short-term phenotypic responses, as a result of the environmental and genetic context of founding populations, should have strong effects on population processes during colonisation. Therefore, understanding the impact these founding conditions have on selection within introduced populations will be of fundamental importance to identifying both the forces that promote and retard biological invasions as well as for understanding how novel phenotypic variants, in conjunction with selection based on environmental conditions, shape phenotypic diversity within natural systems.
Selected Papers
While, G. M., Uller, T. and Wapstra, E. (2011) Variation in social organisation influences the opportunity for sexual selection in a social lizard Molecular Ecology 20: 844-852. | Read abstract/paper online
Pen, I., Uller, T., Feldmeyer, B., Harts, A., While, G. M. and Wapstra, E. (2010) Climate-driven population divergence in sex determining systems Nature 468:436-438. | Read abstract/paper online
While, G.M., Sinn, D.L., and Wapstra, E. (2009) Female aggression predicts mode of paternity acquisition in a social lizard Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, B 276: 2021-2029. | Read abstract/paper online
While, G.M., Uller, T., and Wapstra, E. (2009) Family conflict and the evolution of sociality in a non avian vertebrate Behavioral Ecology 20: 245-250. | Read abstract/paper online
Uller, T., While, G.M., Wapstra, E., Warner, D.A., Goodman, B., Schwarzkopf, L., Langkilde, T., Doughty, P., Radder, R. S., Rohr, D. H., Bull, C. M., Shine, R. and Olsson, M. (2009) Evaluation of offspring size-number invariants in twelve species of lizard Journal of Evolutionary Biology 22: 143-151. | Read abstract/paper online
While, G.M., Uller, T. and Wapstra, E. (2009) Physiological performance and adaptive benefits of prolonged pregnancy: experimental tests in a viviparous lizard Functional Ecology 23: 818-825. | Read abstract/paper online
Download complete list of publications in PDF format
