It's finally happening! After months of very hard work by Hoke and Ghalambor graduate students Kim Dolphin, Craig Marshall, Alex Mauro, Super Lab Tech Leorah McGinnis, and a lot of silicone work on my part, we have established working flow-through fish systems in the new Biology building here at Colorado State University. These systems are very useful because they allow us to replicate an ecologically-relevant environmental cue for guppies: exposure to predators. In a pilot study, I found intriguing evidence for maternal effects on offspring growth and behavior in response to experience with predation risk (stay tuned!) Now, breeding pairs from multiple populations are paired and ready to produce second-generation lab offspring to help us answer questions about the ecological and evolutionary ramifications of within- and across-generational plasticity. Separately, I have also established breeding pairs for some super cool quantitative genetics studies. Guppies are so versatile for answering fundamental ecological and evolutionary questions. Check back here for more updates as experiments progress!
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