Colette St. Mary

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Colette Marie St. Mary is a professor and associate chair of the biology department at the University of Florida. Her research focuses include behavioral and evolutionary ecology, speciation, sexual selection, and evolutionary aspects of cancer. Working mainly with fish model organisms, St. Mary is also interested in marine fisheries management and reproduction and evolution in hatchery settings. St. Mary received her Bachelor's degree in Biology from Harvard Radcliffe College before earning her Ph.D from University of California, Santa Barbara in 1994. She is the first African-American woman to ever receive a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology in the United States.[1] Her thesis was on the determinant of sex allocation patterns and maintenance of simultaneous hermaphroditism in the blue banded goby and zebra goby.[2]

Research focuses[edit]

The evolution of parental care[edit]

St. Mary's research into the evolution of parental care has caused a shift in the conceptual understanding of the evolution of prenatal care (in fishes). The previous theory proposed by evolutionary biologists is parental care comes at a tradeoff - by engaging in parental care for current offspring, males are decreasing the time and energy available for future mating events or survivorship.[3] Thus it would be expected that not males who do not provide parental care would have increased lifetime reproductive success by fertilizing eggs from more females. This would suggest that males should invest in courtship rather than parental care; however this is not what is observed. Together with colleagues, St. Mary showed that in species with male-only parental care, females evaluate males based on their level of parental care, and that males show increased care in the presence of potential mates, suggesting that male parental care is subject to sexual selection as a result of female choice.[4][5][6] More recently, studies of bi-parental care species like certain cichlid fish validated these data and showed that some parental care behaviors function to increase both survival of offspring and mating success.

Evolution, behavior, and conservation[edit]

St. Mary has also collaborated on the study of the effect of agriculture (and agricultural contaminants) on gonadal form and function in the giant cane toad Bufo marinus (also known as Rhinella marina), which found that toads living on land used for agriculture had increased incidences of gonadal abnormalities and intersex gonads. Males were feminized or demasculinized with altered testosterone levels corresponding to the level of agricultural land use.[7] She also helped publish another study of the giant toad species which demonstrated reduced spermatogenesis in toads living in agricultural areas due to endocrine disrupting chemicals.[8] Other studies authored in this field include the ecological determinants of settlement choice in coral reef fish larvae,[9] and the effects of hatchery rearing of Florida largemouth bass.[10]

Autotomy[edit]

St. Mary has also contributed significantly to the field of autotomy. Though a behavior that has evolved repeatedly - seen in crabs, lizards, crickets, and more, the evolutionary pressure behind limb loss is not well understood. The loss of a limb exposes an organism to significant costs - loss of blood or body fluid, risk of infection, and the loss of that limb function, which could affect reproductive success. However, she and her colleagues have demonstrated that in some cases self-autotomy can reduce the cost of injury or allow the organism to escape predation, confirming two popular theories behind the practice.[11][12] While autotomy for escaping predators is relatively widely accepted, limb loss as a method to reduce the survival cost injury is a novel feature first demonstrated by Dr. St. Mary et al. By autotomizing at a preformed breakage plane the organism can reduce the survival cost of the injury.

References[edit]

  1. ^ R Shawn Abrahams (February 17, 2020). "The brief history of African Americans in Evolutionary Biology, and why that is the case". Molecular Ecologist. Retrieved April 4, 2021.
  2. ^ St. Mary, Colette; Marie, Colette (2020-06-07). "The determinants of sex allocation patterns and the maintenance of simultaneous hermaphroditism in the blue-banded goby (Lythrypnus dalli) and the zebra goby (Lythrypnus zebra) /". {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  3. ^ Lindström, Kai; St. Mary, Colette M.; Pampoulie, Christophe (2006-05-01). "Sexual selection for male parental care in the sand goby, Pomatoschistus minutus". Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. 60 (1): 46–51. doi:10.1007/s00265-005-0138-0. ISSN 1432-0762. S2CID 28210301.
  4. ^ Pampoulie, Christophe; Lindström, Kai; St. Mary, Colette M. (2004-03-01). "Have your cake and eat it too: male sand gobies show more parental care in the presence of female partners". Behavioral Ecology. 15 (2): 199–204. doi:10.1093/beheco/arg107. ISSN 1045-2249.
  5. ^ Bonnevier, Katja; Lindström, Kai; St. Mary, Colette (2003-05-01). "Parental care and mate attraction in the Florida flagfish, Jordanella floridae". Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. 53 (6): 358–363. doi:10.1007/s00265-003-0584-5. ISSN 1432-0762. S2CID 41952069.
  6. ^ Klug, Hope; Chin, Andrew; St Mary, Colette M. (2005-03-01). "The net effects of guarding on egg survivorship in the flagfish, Jordanella floridae". Animal Behaviour. 69 (3): 661–668. doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2004.05.019. ISSN 0003-3472. S2CID 54268926.
  7. ^ McCoy Krista A.; Bortnick Lauriel J.; Campbell Chelsey M.; Hamlin Heather J.; Guillette Louis J.; St. Mary Colette M. (2008-11-01). "Agriculture Alters Gonadal Form and Function in the Toad Bufo marinus". Environmental Health Perspectives. 116 (11): 1526–1532. doi:10.1289/ehp.11536. PMC 2592273. PMID 19057706.
  8. ^ McCoy, Krista A.; Amato, Ciro M.; Guillette, Louis J.; St. Mary, Colette M. (2017-12-31). "Giant toads (Rhinella marina) living in agricultural areas have altered spermatogenesis". Science of the Total Environment. 609: 1230–1237. Bibcode:2017ScTEn.609.1230M. doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.07.185. ISSN 0048-9697. PMC 5600858. PMID 28787797.
  9. ^ Lecchini, D.; Osenberg, C. W.; Shima, J. S.; St Mary, C. M.; Galzin, R. (2007-06-01). "Ontogenetic changes in habitat selection during settlement in a coral reef fish: ecological determinants and sensory mechanisms". Coral Reefs. 26 (2): 423–432. Bibcode:2007CorRe..26..423L. doi:10.1007/s00338-007-0212-3. ISSN 1432-0975. S2CID 2435785.
  10. ^ Garlock, T. M.; Monk, C. T.; Lorenzen, K.; Matthews, M. D.; Mary, C. M. St (2014). "Effects of hatchery rearing on Florida largemouth bass Micropterus floridanus resource allocation and performance under semi-natural conditions". Journal of Fish Biology. 85 (6): 1830–1842. doi:10.1111/jfb.12514. ISSN 1095-8649. PMID 25257181.
  11. ^ Emberts, Zachary; Miller, Christine W.; Kiehl, Daniel; St. Mary, Colette M. (2017-08-01). "Cut your losses: self-amputation of injured limbs increases survival". Behavioral Ecology. 28 (4): 1047–1054. doi:10.1093/beheco/arx063. ISSN 1045-2249. PMC 5873245. PMID 29622925. S2CID 4606303.
  12. ^ Emberts, Zachary; Mary, Colette M. St; Howard, Cody Coyotee; Forthman, Michael; Bateman, Philip W.; Somjee, Ummat; Hwang, Wei Song; Li, Daiqin; Kimball, Rebecca T.; Miller, Christine W. (2020). "The evolution of autotomy in leaf-footed bugs". Evolution. 74 (5): 897–910. doi:10.1111/evo.13948. ISSN 1558-5646. PMC 7317576. PMID 32267543.

External links[edit]

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