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.

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​The diagram at left represents the three main lines of investigation of our 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. Below we map the papers published by our research group since 2010, according to the main subject of each paper. The numbers used the list below correspond to those presented in the page "Publications".​ 

Sexual selection
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• Papers 52, 58, 59, 67, 68, 74, 77, 81, 83, 85, 87, 88, 91, 92, ​98, 99, 104, 105, 106, and 109

Parental care
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• Papers 49, 53, 56, 60, 69, 78, 80, 82, and 114

Defense mechanisms
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• Papers 50, 54, 61, 62, 63, 93, ​96, 103, and 107

 Sexual selection and parental care
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• Papers 51, 55, 57, 65, 70, 72, 73, 76, 79, 84, 89, 90, 95, 100, 111, 112, 113, 115, and 116

Sexual selection and defensive mechanisms

• Papers 75, 97, and 110 

Parental care and defensive mechanisms 
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• Paper 64, 66, and 71

Sexual selection, parental care and defensive mechanisms
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• Paper 94