Faculty: Education, Health and Sciences

School: School of Science

Subject Area: Biological, Forensic and Pharmaceutical Sciences

Senior Lecturer in Biological Sciences; Reader in Behavioural Ecology; Head of the Biological Sciences Research Group; Programme Leader for BSc (Hons) Behavioural Sciences (subject to validation).

Teaching responsibilities

I am Programme Leader for BSc (Hons) Behavioural Sciences (subject to successful validation in Feb 2009). My teaching covers the following areas: Animal Behaviour and Behavioural Ecology, Invertebrate Biology, Entomology, Ecology and Research Methods.

Research interests

My main research interests include sexual selection and sexual conflict in arthropods. It is becoming increasingly clear that the evolutionary interests of the sexes often diverge when it comes to mating. I am particularly interested in strategies used by male orthopterans (crickets, bushcrickets and relatives) to secure copulations, to prolong the duration of copulation and ejaculate transfer, to protect the ejaculate within the female and to manipulate the reproductive behaviour of the female.

My research is also concerned with the selective pressures responsible for the evolution and maintenance of nuptial feeding behaviour in arthropods. In a range of insects and spiders, males feed females during courtship and/or copulation. These food gifts take a variety of forms: prey items captured by the male, glandular secretions, or even parts of the male’s body. I am interested in whether nuptial feeding is mutually beneficial for the two sexes, or whether it is actually a subtle way in which the male can manipulate the reproductive behaviour of the female against her evolutionary interests.

Membership of professional bodies and advisory committees

I am a Member of the Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour, the International Society for Behavioural Ecology and the International Orthopterist's Society. I am a Member of the International Orthopterist’s Society’s Grants Committee (2003-present) and I am Western European Regional Representative of the International Orthopterist’s Society (elected Jan 2007).

Recent Publications

• Vahed, K. & Carron, G. (2008) Comparison of forced mating behaviour in four taxa of Anonconotus, the Alpine Bushcricket. Journal of Zoology, 276: 313-321.
• Vahed, K (2007) Comparative evidence for a cost to males of manipulating females in bushcrickets. Behavioural Ecology, 18:507-512.
• Vahed, K (2007) All that glisters is not gold: sensory bias, sexual conflict and nuptial feeding in insects and spiders. Ethology 113: 105-127.
• Vahed, K (2006) Larger ejaculate volumes are associated with a lower degree of polyandry across bushcricket taxa. Proceedings of the Royal Society, B 273: 2387-2394.
• Wynne, H & Vahed, K (2004) Male Gryllus bimaculatus guard females to delay them from mating with novel males and to monopolise them for repeated matings. Journal of Insect Behavior 17: 53-66.
• Vahed, K (2003a) Increases in egg production in multiply-mated female bushcrickets, Leptophyes punctatissima, are not due to substances in the nuptial gift. Ecological Entomology 28: 124-128.
• Vahed, K (2003b) The structure of spermatodoses in shield-back bushcrickets (Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae: Tettigoniinae). Journal of Morphology 257: 45-52.
• Vahed, K (2002) Coercive copulation in the Alpine Bushcricket Anonconotus alpinus Yersin (Tettigoniidae: Tettigoniidae: Platycleidini). Ethology 108: 1065-1075.

Recent Conferences

• Ento '08. Annual National Meeting of the Royal Entomological Society, Plymouth, U.K., September 2008. Poster entitled: Forced copulation in four taxa of alpine bushcrickets (Anonconotus spp).
• XXIII International Congress of Entomology, Durban, South Africa, July 2008. Poster entitled: Comparison of forced copulation in four taxa of alpine bushcrickets.
• Orthopterist’s Conference and Meeting of the Royal Entomological Society, London, November 2006. Key-note lecture entitled: Sexual conflict in bushcricket mating systems
• ISBE 2006: 11th Congress of the International Society for Behavioural Ecology. Tours, France, July 2006. Oral presentation entitled: Comparative evidence that males can manipulate the lifetime degree of polyandry of their mates through substances in the ejaculate.

Additional Interests and Activities

Membership of journal editorial boards

• Associate Editor for the Journal of Orthoptera Research (2005-present)

Research Students

• Helen Wynne; completed PhD in 2001:  'The function of mate guarding in the Field Cricket Gryllus bimaculatus' Director of studies: K. Vahed; second supervisor: R. Beck.
• Helene Le Blanc; completed  PhD in 2008: 'Olfactory stimuli associated with the different stages of vertebrate decomposition and their role in the attraction of the blowfly Calliphora vomitoria (Diptera: Calliphoridae) to carcasses'.  Director of studies: K. Vahed; second supervisor: M. Hall (BMNH).
• Helena Cumming; started MPhil in 2004: 'Surface breaking behaviour in marine rays in captivity'. Director of studies: P. Carey; second supervisor: K.Vahed.

Undergraduate qualifications

• BSc (Hons) Biological Sciences, University of Exeter

Research qualifications

• PhD Zoology, University of Nottingham

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