Sex in troubled waters |
Bob B.M. Wong. School of Biological Sciences, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia |
The pursuit of mating opportunities, even at the best of times, can pose a significant challenge to sexually reproducing organisms. Charles Darwin in the�Origin of Species�described it as a ‘sexual struggle’ arising from intense competition among individuals for the opportunity to mate. In most animals, reproduction is finely attuned to the environment.�So, what happens when environmental conditions are disturbed due to anthropogenic activities? One particularly insidious form of anthropogenic disturbance is contamination of the environment by a myriad of human and veterinary pharmaceuticals that can affect the behaviour, morphology and physiology of non-target organisms.�In this talk, I will consider the pivotal role that reproductive behaviour plays in determining the fate of individuals, species and populations under human-induced environmental change, and discuss recent research investigating the ecological and evolutionary impacts of pharmaceutical contaminants on reproduction and mechanisms of sexual selection in fish. |