Andrew Pomiankowski PhD

Professor of Genetics

Stalk-eyed Fly web page

ucbhpom@ucl.ac.uk
tel: (+44)-(0)20-7679-7413
fax: (+44)-(0)20-7679-5052

My research addresses evolutionary questions primarily in the area of sexual selection. One of the key questions I have been working on is the evolution of female mate preferences for exaggerated male sexual traits used in courtship display. The work is motivated by theory on the handicap principle (female choice of mates with higher phenotypic or genotypic quality) and Fisher’s runaway process (female choice for attractive mates). These ideas are being tested with Diopsid stalk-eyed flies, and this experimental work is in turn inspiring new theory about sexual traits and male fertility. In addition, my recent theoretical work has investigated sex determination and the evolution of gene networks, genomic imprinting of sex chromosomes, and the consequences of intra-genomic conflicts. I am a founder member and keen supporter of CoMPLEX, UCL’s inter-disciplinary research centre for mathematical biology.

References

Pomiankowski, A., Nöthiger, R. and Wilkins, A. 2004. Evolution of the Drosophila sex determination pathway. Genetics 166, 1761-1773.

Cotton, S., Fowler, K. and Pomiankowski, A. 2004. Do sexual ornaments demonstrate heightened condition-dependent expression as predicted by the handicap hypothesis? Proceedings of the Royal Society B 271, 771-783.

Seymour, R. M., Allan, M. J., Pomiankowski, A. and Gustafsson, K. 2004. Evolution of the human ABO polymorphism through two complementary selective processes. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 271, 1065-1072.