The Flanagan Lab

About the lab

The Flanagan Lab in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch is focused on understanding the evolutionary mechanisms allowing variation in traits to be maintained within and among populations. Specifically, we are interested in understanding the evolution of sexually dimorphic traits (why are males and females different morphologically and behaviourally in some species and not other closely related species?) and identifying mechanisms impacting fitness-related traits (what evolutionary mechanisms and which traits are involved in population declines?). We use a wide variety of tools to address these questions, including population genetics, comparative genomics, transcriptomics, animal behaviour, and simulation modeling. Our empirical work has mostly focused on pipefish and seahorses, but we are also studying kororā (little blue penguins), emperor penguins, paikea (humpback whales), and pathogenic oomycetes.

Lab news

November 2025: Juan Lee was awarded a Graduate Student Research Award from the Society of Systematic Biology to support his thesis research – well done Juan!

November 2025: Congratulations to Belle Hartshorn who won an award for best presentation at the Annual Biology Conference! She also submitted her thesis and finished the requirements for her BSc(Hons) this month.

November 2025: Juan Lee won an award for best student presentation at The Korean Society of Fisheries and Aquatic Science conference in Busan, South Korean. Congratulations!

October 2025: Sarah left for a one-month excursion to Antarctica to join in on the field work for her collaborative project with Professor Michelle LaRue and colleagues, which focusses on the coexistence of emperor penguins, Weddell seals, and Adelie Penguins in the Ross Sea.

September 2025: We are welcoming postdoctoral researcher Skye Davis and visiting MSc student Isla O’Donoghue to the lab this month. Skye will be investigating population genomics in emperor penguins and Isla will be focussed on ticks feeding on kororā. Welcome, both!

September 2025: Nan Hauser submitted her PhD thesis!

August 2025: Emily Beasley successfully passed the oral examination of her PhD thesis!

July 2025: The special issue in Molecular Ecology on the Ecology of Gene Expression that Sarah co-edited is now published, alongside the editorial Sarah contributed to!

May 2025: Emily Beasley submitted her PhD thesis for examination!

February 2025: Sarah appeared on RNZ’s Afternoons with Jesse Mulligan to discuss her recent paper on supergenes. Click the link to listen!

January 2025: Belle Hartshorn has joined the lab to do her BSc(Hons). Welcome, Belle!

See older news at the news archive