Dr. Carin Bondar - Biologist with a Twist

Animal Reproduction

Mating Signals and Sound Pollution – The Cocktail Party Problem

Environmental variation can wreak havoc on animals that use auditory signals to find mates. Ever tried to carry on a conversation with a potential mate in a noisy nightclub? Have you had much success in [...]
Animal Reproduction

The Effect of Ovarian Fluid on Sperm Dynamics in These Fish

Externally fertilizing fish provide several fascinating examples of cryptic female choice at work. In these systems, females lay their eggs in nests on the floor of their aquatic habitat, and males fertilize them externally. Congeneric [...]
Animal Reproduction

Earwigs and Red Flour Beetles Exercise Cryptic Female Choice

In some of the more simplistic cases of cryptic female choice, females prove unable to discern a good mate from a bad one during pre-coital activities. In many insects it’s extremely difficult to tell a [...]

Parenting Hypothesis for Practice Nursing

March 24, 2021 0

The parenting hypothesis posits that first-time moms (moms who haven’t given birth) will allonurse unrelated offspring as a means by which to gain experience and skill for when the “real thing” occurs. This kind of […]

Fire Salamanders Have Two Reproductive Modes

March 17, 2021 0

The fire salamander Salamandra salamandra is an organism with a perplexing level of parental plasticity. Females are generally oviviparous (not to be confused with oviparous), which means that somewhere between thirty and sixty larvae are […]

Female House Mice Co-Parent

March 10, 2021 1

Close bonds form between females who see each other all the time, although in the case of alloparenting and shared nursing between house mice, there is little or no genetic relatedness between females. Group living […]