A hearty congratulations to Sarah Detmering, who successfully defended her Masters thesis titled “How does viewing simulated injury and male agonistic competition affect mate choice in female S. bandensis”. Sarah started in the lab as a research teach almost four years ago, and two years decided to join the Masters program in Biology to gain additional training in research methods and experimental design. Sarah’s thesis describes the complex courtship and contest behaviors in the dwarf cuttlefish, Sepia bandensis, and looks at how interactions between different dyads (M/F or M/M) are changed by the appearance of injury on a male. Because cuttlefish rely heavily on the chromatophores to produce signals during mate competition, Sarah measured how simulated injury (transient anesthesia of the muscles controlling chromatophores, giving the skin a white color) changes females’ choices of preferred males. The effect of injury on mate choice is surpisingly understudied, and in cephalopods, who change their appearance in a dynamic ways during behavioral interactions, the costs of injury may be especially high. Sarah’s data suggest that females don;t necessarily change their choice of preferred male if he subsequenty appears to be injured, but the degree to which they prefer him over a rival decreases. This interesting finding supports the hypothesis that injury has important implications for reproductive fitness.
Sarah is defending a little bit earlier than is typical because she has another important project nearing completion! We wish her many congratulations on the defense of her thesis and of course, even more for the upcoming birth of her first child. We already miss you, Sarah!