The second chapter of my PhD is now available as a preprint 🦚. A lot of it came together during long days in front of my blue screen, and weekends spent watching puffins in the UK. With an amazing team @robknell.bsky.social @jacek-radwan.bsky.social Jonathan Parrett and @ecologycoder.bsky.social

Rob Knell@robknell.bsky.social · 4mo ago

1) New manuscript preprint up: we model adaptation to changing environments under mating systems ranging from random mating via mutual choice monogamy through to female choice polygyny. 🧪https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.30.715329v1

24hrs straight under the microscope and many many hours of counting later. Cheers to Neha for leading this study and all the people. Happy to have been a part of this. Still traumatised by the deutonymphs though.

Rob Knell@robknell.bsky.social · 4mo ago

New paper out in #Ecology Letters: We manipulated the presence of "fighter" and "scrambler" males in soil mite populations and showed that aggressive male behaviour reduces population size and stability. 🧪#SexualSelection #PopulationEcology onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

New work by Neha Pandey and the group on sexual selection’s role in population resilience, dynamics & recovery is now out.

Rob Knell@robknell.bsky.social · 4mo ago

New paper out in #Ecology Letters: We manipulated the presence of "fighter" and "scrambler" males in soil mite populations and showed that aggressive male behaviour reduces population size and stability. 🧪#SexualSelection #PopulationEcology onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

New paper out in #Ecology Letters: We manipulated the presence of "fighter" and "scrambler" males in soil mite populations and showed that aggressive male behaviour reduces population size and stability. 🧪#SexualSelection #PopulationEcology onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Sexual Selection Associated With an Aggressive Male Phenotype Reduces Population Size and Hinders Population Recovery After Heat Stress

Using experiments on soil mites, we show that sexual selection associated with an armed and aggressive male phenotype can reduce population size and stability, which lowers their resilience against a...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Happy to share new paper in EcologyLetters We show that aggressive male morphs make populations unstable & less resilient to heat stress @neelamporwal.bsky.social @jacek-radwan.bsky.social @robknell.bsky.social @ecoevoenviro.bsky.social @evobiolab.bsky.social onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Sexual Selection Associated With an Aggressive Male Phenotype Reduces Population Size and Hinders Population Recovery After Heat Stress

Using experiments on soil mites, we show that sexual selection associated with an armed and aggressive male phenotype can reduce population size and stability, which lowers their resilience against a...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com