Nicole Smolensky

Ph.D. 2014, Texas A&M

Nicole received her B.S. from UC Santa Cruz in 2003 and performed research in the Krug lab as a CEA-CREST undergraduate summer fellow, and post-graduate intern.  She documented self-fertilization in the sea slug Alderia willowi, a phenomenon known only in two other sea slugs from the genus Berthellinia and not described in the modern era.  Nicole then showed that selfing versus mating differentially affected the fecundity of slugs, suggesting a cost of mating due to hypodermic insemination.

 

see Smolensky et al. 2009, Biological Bulletin