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Current Group
Michael Jennions
Jennie Mallela (Post-doc)
Martin Edvardsson (Visit Fellow)
Crystal Vincent (Visit Fellow)
Richard Milner (PhD Student)
Isobel Booksmythe (PhD student)
Sophie Callander (PhD Student)
Andrew Kahn (PhD Student)
Dominique Roche (PhD Student)
Jonathan Henshaw (Hons student)
James Davies (Research Officer)

 

Recent Members
Megan Higgie (Post-doc)
Clint Kelly (Post-doc)
 Fleur de Crespigny (Visit. Fellow)
Jean Drayton(PhD student)
Brian Mautz (PhD Student)
 Bob Wong (PhD Student)
J.E. (Kobus) Boeke (Msc)
Michelle Shackleton (Msc)

 Jules Livingston (Hons Student)
Fredrick Hayes (Hons Student)
Jessica Bolton (HonsStudent)
 Leah Bala (Hons Student)
Katie Humphrey (Hons Student)

Contact

Evolution, Ecology & Genetics Research School of Biology
Australian National University,
Canberra, ACT 0200,
Australia
 Email

 

External Collaborators

 
 


Dr Megan Higgie

                

Email me at JCU

 

UPDATE:  I have recently taken up a lectureship at James Cook University in the School of Marine and Tropical Biology. I will soon have a new website. Meantime, this site can be used to access PDFs of my papers.

Background

My general interests are centred on selective processes that generate divergence in mating display traits and preferences among populations, creating the potential for speciation. More specifically, I am interested in the process of reinforcement and the implications that the resulting reproductive character displacement can have on sexual selection and premating isolation within a species. My Honours and PhD research focused on the evolution of reproductive character displacement in the cuticular hydrocarbons of Drosophila serrata – caused by sympatry with a close relative, Drosophila birchii – and how this displacement has interfered with sexual selection between allopatric and sympatric populations of D. serrata.  I finished my PhD at the University of Queensland in 2008 under  the supervision of Prof Mark Blows. 

I was awarded an ARC Post-doc (2009-2011) at the ANU. Here my academic hosts were Scott Keogh and Michael Jennions. I worked on mate choice and preference evolution in a contact zone between lineages of the frog Litoria genimaculata in the Wet Tropics of Queensland.

Publications

13. McGraw E, Yixin Y, Foley BR, Chenoweth SF, Higgie M, Hine E, Blows MW. In Press. High-dimensional variance partitioning reveals the modular genetic basis of adaptive divergence in gene expression during reproductive character displacement. Evolution 65:3126-3137 [PDF]

12. Hoskin CJ, Tonione M, Higgie M, MacKenzie JB, Williams SE, VanDerWal J, Moritz C. In press. Persistence in peripheral refugia promotes phenotypic divergence and speciation in a rainforest frog. American Naturalist 178:561-578 [PDF via Jstor]

11.  Hoskin CJ and Higgie M. 2010. Speciation via species interactions: the divergence of mating traits within species. Ecology Letters 13: 409-420 [PDF]

10. Hoskin CJ and Higgie M. 2008.  A new species of velvet gecko (Diplodactylidae; Oedura) from North-east Queensland, Australia. Zootaxa 1788:21-36 [PDF]

9. Higgie M and Blows MW. 2008. The evolution of reproductive character displacement conflicts with how sexual selection operates within a species.  Evolution 62:1192-1203  [PDF]

8.   Higgie M and Blows MW. 2007. Are traits that experience reinforcement also under sexual selection? American Naturalist 170:409-420  [PDF]

7.   Van Homrigh A, Higgie M, McGuigan K, and Blows MW. 2007. The depletion of genetic variance by sexual selection. Current Biology 17:528-532  [PDF]

 6.   Hoskin CJ, Higgie M, McDonald KR, and Moritz C. 2005. Reinforcement drives rapid allopatric speciation. Nature 437:1353-1356  [PDF]

 5.   Hoskin CJ and Higgie M. 2005. Minimum calling altitudes of Cophixalus frogs on Thornton Peak, northeastern Queensland. Memoirs of the Queensland Museum 51:572  [PDF]

4.   Blows MW and Higgie M. 2003. Genetic constraints on the evolution of mate recognition under natural selection. American Naturalist 161:240-253  [PDF]

3.   Blows MW and Higgie M. 2002. Evolutionary experiments on mate recognition in the Drosophila serrata species complex. Genetica 116:239-250  [PDF]

 2.   Hine E, Lachish S, Higgie M, and Blows MW. 2002. Positive genetic correlation between female preference and offspring fitness. Proceedings of the Royal Society Series B 269:2215-2219  [PDF]

 1.   Higgie M, Chenoweth S, and Blows MW. 2000. Natural selection and the reinforcement of mate recognition. Science 290:519-521  [PDF]

Contact

 My  email address is megan.higgie@jcu.edu.au

 

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