Rafael L. Rodríguez Assistant Professor Post-doctoral Fellow, University of Missouri-Columbia, 2002-2006 PhD, University of Kansas, 2002 MS, University of Costa Rica, 1996 BS, University of Costa Rica, 1991	Office: Lapham S295 Phone: 414-229-3445 FAX: 414-229-3926 Email: rafa@uwm.edu Personal Homepage Electronic Reserve Materials:
Behavioral Ecology

Research Interests

I am interested in the behavioral ecology of insects, especially aspects related to complex social interactions and sexual competition. Traits that function in these contexts provide some of the best examples of rapid diversification and elaboration. Besides the sheer fascination of this topic full of byzantine form and behavior, studying how these traits evolve can afford insights into the processes of selection, adaptation and divergence.

Selected Publications

Cocroft RB & Rodríguez RL. 2005. The behavioral ecology of insect vibrational communication. BioScience 55, 323-334. Eberhard WG, Huber BA, Rodríguez RL, Salas I, Briceño RD & Rodríguez V. 1998. One size fits all? Relationships between the size and degree of variation in genitalia and other body parts in twenty species of insects and spiders. Evolution 52, 415-431. Greenfield MD & Rodríguez RL. 2004. Genotype-environment interaction and the reliability of mating signals. Animal Behaviour 68, 1461-1468. Rodríguez RL. 1998. Possible female choice during copulation in Ozophora baranowskii (Heteroptera: Lygaeidae): female behavior, multiple copulations, and sperm transfer. Journal of Insect Behavior 11, 725-741. Rodríguez RL & Gamboa E. 2000. Memory of captured prey in three web spiders (Araneae: Araneidae, Linyphiidae, Tetragnathidae). Animal Cognition 3, 91-97. Rodríguez RL & Greenfield MD. 2003. Genetic variance and phenotypic plasticity in a component of female mate choice in an ultrasonic moth. Evolution 57, 1304 1313. Rodríguez RL, Ramaswamy K & Cocroft RB. 2006. Evidence that female preferences have shaped male signal evolution in a clade of specialized plant-feeding insects. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 273, 2585-2593. Rodríguez RL & Snedden WA. 2004. On the functional design of receiver bias and mate choice. Animal Behaviour 68, 427-432.