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About the G-Spot


Our main interest relies on behavioral ecology, including defense mechanisms, sexual selection, and especially parental care. The projects conducted in our laboratory integrate long-term empirical studies to experimental manipulations in order to answer questions on the evolution of behavior. Our work covers a variety of taxa, including harvestmen, spiders, earwigs, dragonflies, and frogs. The team is composed of a lead researcher, Dr. Glauco Machado, undergraduate and graduate students, and also post-docs. Whenever possible, we collaborate with colleagues with expertise in relevant fields, such as genetics and population ecology, so as to address questions at multiple levels.
These are some of the model organisms we use in our research.

​The diagram at left represents the three main lines of investigation in the G-Spot lab. These lines have some overlap with each other. Currently, we develop some projects focused only in sexual selection, but there are several projects in the interface between sexual selection and parental care, and also two projects that congregate sexual selection, parental care, and defensive mechanisms in the same general framework. Bellow we map our current projects in the diagram, according to the main subject of each project:​ 

Sexual selection
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  • Cristiane H. Millan: Causes and consequences of within-population variation in female preference
  • Danilo G. Muniz: Computational models for the evolution of female choice and male sexual ornaments
  • Diogo Samia: Evolution of condition dependent sexual dimorphism in a clade of Neotropical arachnids: a comparative analysis of the genic capture hypothesis
  • Erika M. Santana: Causes and consequences of polyandry
  • Vinícius M. Caldart: Function of multimodal displays and the effect of environmental factors on the reproductive success of a Neotropical frog (Anura, Hylodidae)
 Sexual selection and parental care

  • Andres Rojas: Dynamics of nest use in a Neotropical harvestman with exclusive paternal care
  • Gustavo S. Requena: Takes good care of the offspring because is the father or is the father because takes good care of the offspring? Co-evolution between paternal effort and traits that bias paternity
  • Louise M. Alissa: Effects of the availability of reproductive sites on the intensity of sexual selection and costs of parental care
  • Rosannette Quesada Hidalgo: Sex role reversal in a neotropical harvestman with exclusive paternal care: male mate choice and female competition for access to mates
  • Vinícius Montagner: Influence of nest quality and male quality on female mate choice in a harvestman with exclusive paternal care
 
Sexual selection, parental care, and defensive mechanisms

  • Solimary García Hernández: Implications of autotomy of metasoma for locomotion, reproduction, foraging, and defense in scorpions
  • Alexandre V. Palaoro: Behavioral precursors and the origin of parental care in arthropods