It is also an excellent model system to test various general models for speciation. One controversial model is that speciation may occur through disruptive sexual selection. Testing this hypothesis requires an investigation of the proximate mechanisms which give rise to novel traits as well as to mating preferences for these traits. More specifically, it will test how early experience with parents and siblings affects later mating preferences, either through the process of imprinting or by affecting predispositions. Such knowledge is a key-element to test the hypothesis that sexual selection through selective mate choice may lead to speciation.
Early experience is known to affect mate preferences in birds.
This PhD position will be based primarily in the Behavioural Biology Research Group in Leiden but there will be close links to the Animal Ecology in Leiden and the Animal Behaviour Unit of the Biological Centre in Groningen. The project is primarily lab based but some field trips to the Victoria lake are planned.