Sarah Rosalind Pryke is a behavioural and evolutionary ecologist. A graduate of the

University of Natal The University of Natal was a university in the former South African province Natal which later became KwaZulu-Natal. The University of Natal no longer exists as a distinct legal entity, as it was incorporated into the University of KwaZulu-N ...

(South Africa), with a PhD from

Göteborg University The University of Gothenburg ( sv, Göteborgs universitet) is a university in Sweden's second largest city, Gothenburg. Founded in 1891, the university is the third-oldest of the current Swedish universities and with 37,000 students and 6000 s ...

(Sweden), she is best known for her research on the evolution of sexual signals in the

Red-collared widowbird The red-collared widowbird (''Euplectes ardens'') is a species of bird in the family Ploceidae. Red-collared widowbirds are found in grasslands and bush clearings in Eastern and Southern Africa. They are known for their long tails and brilliant r ...

and more recently research on maternal effects and the evolution of alternative reproductive strategies in the

Gouldian finch The Gouldian finch (''Chloebia gouldiae''), also known as the Lady Gouldian finch, Gould's finch or the rainbow finch, is a colourful passerine bird that is native to Australia. Taxonomy The Gouldian finch was described by British ornithologi ...

Career

Pryke began her postdoctoral career with a move to

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

in 2005. At this time she took up New South Global Postdoctoral Fellowship at the

University of New South Wales The University of New South Wales (UNSW), also known as UNSW Sydney, is a public research university based in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is one of the founding members of Group of Eight, a coalition of Australian research-intensive ...

. In 2007 she moved to

Macquarie University Macquarie University ( ) is a public research university based in Sydney, Australia, in the suburb of Macquarie Park. Founded in 1964 by the New South Wales Government, it was the third university to be established in the metropolitan area of S ...

to take up an ARC Postdoctoral Fellowship, followed in 2010 by an Innovation Research Fellowship awarded by Macquarie University. In 2012, Pryke obtained a faculty position at the

Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public research university located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, in addition to several national academies and ...

where she moved to establish her own research group and start and ARC Future Fellowship.

Awards and recognition

*2004 – Pitelka Award from the International Society for Behavioural Ecology *2005 – Christer Hemborg Award *2007 – L'Oréal Women in Science Fellowship Award *2011 – Christopher Barnard Award for Outstanding Contributions by a New Investigator from Association for the Study of Animal Behaviours

Selected publications

*Pryke, S. R. 2013. Bird contests: from hatching to fertilisation. In: Animal Contests. Editors: I.C.W. Hardy & M. Briffa. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge pp. 287–303. *Pryke S. R. & Rollins L. A. 2012. Mothers adjust offspring sex to match the quality of the rearing environment. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B. 279: 4051–4057. *Pryke S. R., Rollins L. A. & Griffith S. C. 2011. Context-dependent sex allocation: constraints on the expression and evolution of maternal allocation. Evolution. 65: 2792–2799. *Pryke, S. R., Rollins, L. A. & Griffith, S. C. 2010. Females use multiple mating and genetically loaded sperm competition to target compatible genes. Science 329: 964–967. *Pryke, S. R. 2010. Sex chromosome linkage of mate preferences and color signal maintains assortative mating between interbreeding finch morphs. Evolution 65: 1301–1310. *Pryke, S. R. & Griffith, S. C. 2009. Postzygotic incompatibility drives sex allocation and maternal investment in a polymorphic finch. Science 323: 1605–1607. *Pryke, S. R. & Griffith, S. C. 2009. Socially mediated trade-offs between aggression and parental effort in competing color morphs. American Naturalist 174: 455–464. *Pryke, S. R. 2007. Sexual selection of ultraviolet and structural color signals. In: Reproductive biology and phylogeny of Aves. Editor: B. M. Jamieson. Science Publishers Inc., Enfield, USA. pp. 1–40. *Pryke, S. R. & Griffith, S. C. 2006. Red dominates black: Agonistic signalling among head morphs in the colour polymorphic Gouldian finch. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B. 273: 949–957. *Pryke, S. R., Lawes, M. J. & Andersson, M. 2002. Multiple receivers, multiple ornaments and a trade-off between agonistic and epigamic signaling in a widowbird. American Naturalist 160: 683–691. *Pryke, S. R. & Andersson, S. 2002. A generalized female bias for long tails in a short-tailed widowbird. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 269: 2141–2146. *Pryke S. R., Andersson, S. & Lawes, M. J. 2002. Carotenoid status signaling in captive and wild red-collared widowbirds: independent effects of badge size and color. Behavioral Ecology 13: 622–631.

References

External links

Sarah Pryke.comPryke Lab - Evolutionary and behavioural ecology
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pryke, Sarah Australian women scientists Living people Year of birth missing (living people) University of Natal alumni University of Gothenburg alumni Academic staff of the University of New South Wales Academic staff of Macquarie University Academic staff of the Australian National University Australian ecologists Women ecologists