KRUG LAB - EVOLUTIONARY AND LARVAL ECOLOGY OF MARINE INVERTEBRATES
John Martin
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For his M.S. thesis, John studied how sexual selection operates in sea slugs with hypodermic insemination (Alderia spp.). His work showed that the benefits of polyandry (insemination by multiple mates) compensated for costs associated with hypodermic insemination and inbreeding. Slugs increased short-term reproduction after mating with multiple males, suggesting the
species evolved to maximize genetic benefits in response to cues of polyandry.
John is currently a Ph.D. candidate at UC Irvine, studying sexual selection in birds. He also holds BAs in Cinema Production (San Francisco State University) and Biology (CSU Northridge), where he worked on juvenile dispersal strategies of the endangered Giant Kangaroo Rat in the Carrizo Plain National Monument. John spent five years in Oslo, Norway where the visible impacts of climate change on Scandinavia encouraged him to return to school to study environmental biology.