Emma Whittington
Student, PhD, and Teaching Assistant in Syracuse, New York
Research Interests:
I am interested in sexual selection and its impact on sperm proteome evolution, particularly relating to male-male and/or male-female interactions occurring after mating in the female reproductive tract and the wider implications for divergence and speciation.
My research, thus far, has focussed on sperm heteromorphism in Lepidoptera and dissecting the molecular underpinnings behind this. Sperm heteromorphism describes the phenomena where males of a species produce more than one sperm morph in a single ejaculate, only one of which is capable of fertilising the egg. Essentially males are producing infertile but non-aberrant sperm in consistent and significant numbers (~96% of sperm in Manduca sexta). The function of infertile sperm morphs is largely unknown and evidence for single hypotheses is equivocal. I am using proteomic techniques to analyse the differences in proteome composition in the two morphs.
Education:
• PhD – Syracuse University, 2013 to present
• MRes in Evolutionary Biology – University of Bath, 2011-2012.
• BSc in Behavioural Biology – University of St Andrews, 2007-2011
Publications:
Whittington, E., Zhao, Q., Borziak, K., Walters, J.R. and Dorus, S. (2015). Characterisation of the Manduca sexta Sperm Proteome: Genetic Novelty Underlying Sperm Composition in Lepidoptera. Insect Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. 62: 183-93.
McDonough, C.E., Whittington, E., Pitnick, S. and Dorus, S. (2016). Proteomics of Reproductive Systems: Towards a Molecular Understanding of Postmating, Prezygotic Reproductive Barriers. Journal of Proteomics. 135:26-37.
Whittington, E., Forsythe, D., Karr, T., Walters, J., and Dorus, S. (2017). Contrasting Patterns of Evolutionary Constraint and Novelty Revealed by Comparative Sperm Proteomic Analysis in Lepidoptera. BMC Genomics. 18:931.