Mark Elgar - Associate Dean (Graduate Programs)

I completed my BSc (Hons) in the School of Australian Environmental Studies, Griffith University. After a couple of years as a research assistant, I enrolled as a PhD student at the University of Cambridge under the supervision of Nick Davies. My thesis research examined the costs and benefits of group foraging in house sparrows, which involved field experiments on the roof of the Zoology building. I obtained an SERC Postdoctoral Fellowship to work on comparative studies at the University of Oxford with Paul Harvey. During this time, I initiated research into the evolution of mating behaviour in invertebrates, and pursued this interest while holding a University Fellowship and then a QEII Fellowship at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. I joined the Department of Zoology at Melbourne in 1991 and was promoted to my current position in 2005. Currently, I am Editor-in-Chief of the journals Behavioral Ecology and the Australian Journal of Zoology, Associate Editor of the journals Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology and Research Letters in Ecology, and a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Ethology. I am Associate Dean (Graduate Programs) of the Faculty of Science, and a former member of the University Council.

My research takes an experimental and comparative approach to investigating the evolutionary significance of social and mating behaviour, mostly in terrestrial invertebrates. Specific areas of interest include the evolutionary outcomes of sexual conflict, especially in sexually cannibalistic species; cryptic female choice and sperm competition; chemical communication; and the evolution of receptor organ diversity.

Dr Therésa Jones; Dr Kathryn MacNamara; Dr Matthew Symonds; Dr Ellen van Wilgenburg; Dr André Walter

Clare D'Alberto; Rebecca Featherston; Sarah Garnick; Lisa Hodgkin; Tamara Johnson; Clare Kinnear; Leonor Ceballos Meraz; Emile van Lieshout

Coordinator
Evolution and the Human Condition
Animal Behaviour
Experimental Animal Behaviour
Research Project

Contributor
Biology of Cells and Organisms

Associate Dean (Graduate Programs), Faculty of Science
Member, Faculty Executive, Faculty of Science
Member, Melbourne Custom Programs Committee, University of Melbourne
Member, Melbourne Model Committee, University of Melbourne
Member, Academic Programs Committee, University of Melbourne
Member, Research Training Advisory Committee, University of Melbourne
Chair, Postgraduate Programs Committee, Faculty of Science
Member, Curriculum Committee, Department of Zoology

Arnqvist G, Jones TM, Elgar MA (2003) Sex-role reversed nuptial feeding in Zeus bugs. Nature 424: 387

Elgar MA, Allan RA (2004) Spider chemical mimics acquire colony-specific cuticular hydrocarbons from their ant model prey. Naturwissenschaften 91: 143–147

Elgar MA, Schneider JM, Herberstein ME (2000) Females control paternity in a sexually cannibalistic spider. Proceedings of the Royal Society, London 267: 2439–2443

Fromhage L, Elgar MA, Schneider JM (2005) Faithful without care: the evolution of monogyny. Evolution 59: 1400–1405

Jones TM. Elgar MA (2008) Patterns of insemination and paternity success in the golden orb-weaving spider Nephila edulis. Behavioral Ecology 19: 285–291

Jones TM, Featherston R, Paris D, Elgar MA (2007) Beetle age, sperm transfer and sperm competition. Behavioral Ecology 18: 251–258

McNamara KB, Elgar MA, Brown R, Jones TM (2008) Paternity costs from polyandry compensated by increased fecundity in the hide beetle. Behavioral Ecology 19: 433–440

Symonds MRE, Elgar MA (2008) The evolution of pheromone diversity. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 23: 220–228

van Wilgenburg E, Dang S, Forti A-L, Koumoundouros T J, Ly A, Elgar MA (2007) An absence of aggression between non-nestmates in the bull ant Myrmecia nigriceps. Naturwissenchaften 94: 787–790

Walter A, Elgar MA, Bliss P, Moritz RFA (2008) ‘Wrap attack’ activates web decorating behavior in Argiope spiders. Behavioral Ecology 19: 799–804