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 different 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), paikea (humpback whales), and pathogenic oomycetes.

Lab news

January 2024: Sarah was interviewed on the RNZ Morning Report to talk about the recent pipefish research. You can listen to the short conversation here!

January 2024: Sarah wrote an article for The Conversation about the lab’s recently published research on wide-bodied pipefish behaviour.

December 2023: Nan Hauser has enrolled at UC for the last year of her PhD, funded by a UC Sustainability Development Scholarship, under the supervision of Sarah and Travis Horton.

November 2023: We have two summer research students starting in the lab, Ella Peoples and Myles Landon. Welcome to the team!

November 2023: Georgia Gwatkin recieved a UC Masters Scholarship, which she will be starting in February! She will be working with Sarah and Michelle LaRue on kororā ecology and behaviour.

October 2023: Coley won the School of Biological Science’s Best Paper Award and the Senior Demonstrator award at the Annual Biology Conference. Congratulations, Coley!

October 2023: Fleur van Eyndhoven’s masters research was published in The Royal Society Open Science, titled “High rates of male courtship in a female-ornamented pipefish”. It is open access so everyone can take a look!

October 2023: Sarah has received a small grant from the University of Canterbury Biosecurity Innovations research cluster to fund research on penguin ticks in collaboration with Chris Niebuhr at Manaaki Whenua - Landcare Research.

August 2023: Ruby O’Neill submitted her MSc thesis – congratulations on the achievement!

August 2023: Sarah was awarded a Distributed Leadership in Teaching Programme scholarship, so she will be spending one day each week working with the Future Learning & Development team on enhancing her Biological Data Analysis course.

July 2023: Katrin Clark has joined the lab as a Research Assistant, helping on kororā projects. Welcome Katrin!

July 2023: Sarah and Travis Horton have been awarded a grant from Genomics Aotearoa to generate whole-genome sequence data for paikea (humpback whales)!

June 2023: Alex Cox was awarded a Bioprotection Aotearoa travel scholarship! She will be presenting at Queenstown Research Week – stop by to say hello if you are there!

June 2023: Coley and Sarah presented research from the lab at the Evolution 2023 meeting in Albuquerque.

May 2023: Coley Tosto received travel scholarships to attend Evolution 2023 in Albuquerque!

May 2023: Juan Lee and Alex Cox commenced their PhD research with Sarah. We are very excited to be growing the lab!

April 2023: Coley’s undergraduate research was published in Frontiers in Marine Science, titled “The development of a quantification method for measuring iridescence using sexually selected traits in the Gulf pipefish (Syngnathus scovelli)”, with her co-supervisors Emily Rose and Heather Mason.

April 2023: Juan Lee was awarded a UC Doctoral Scholarship to do his PhD with Sarah, studying pipefish evolution. He arrived from South Korea and will be starting his PhD in May.

April 2023: Analese Fon has joined the lab as a BSc(Hons) student, co-supervised by Travis Horton, and is studying humpback whale behaviour.

March 2023: Alex Cox has submitted her MSc thesis. Congratulations Alex! Alex will be staying on as a PhD student.

March 2023: The team has had a paper published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, titled “The roles of sexual selection and sexual conflict in shaping patterns of genome and transcriptome variation”, with collaborators Bob Wong and Judith Mank.

February 2023: Emily has returned from 6 months living and working in Melbourne, Australia, with her co-supervisor Prof. Bob Wong. We’re glad to have her back in Christchurch!

December 2022: Sarah, Coley, and Emily attended the Australasian Evolution Society conference in Canberra, and all three gave talks about our research on pipefish. Reach out if you want to know more about our preliminary results!

See older news at the news archive