Education
Scott Sakaluk received his B.Sc. (honors, 1978) and M.Sc. (1981) from Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario, and his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto in 1986. Following a brief stint as a NSERC post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Entomology at the University of Arizona, he accepted a position as a behavioral ecologist in the Department of Biological Sciences at Illinois State University in 1987.
Watch a portion of Dr. Sakaluk’s Distinguished Professor lecture
Research Interests
Stats
NAME: Scott Kitchener Sakaluk
LOCATION: Normal, Illinois
POSITION: Distinguished Professor
INTERESTS: Cryptic Sexual Conflict, Post-copulatory Female Choice
Collaborators:
- Dr. Charles Thompson, Illinois State University
- Dr. Anne Eggert, Illinois State University
- Dr. Keith Bowers, University of Memphis
- Dr. John Hunt, Western Sydney University
- Dr. Ben Sadd, Illinois State University
- Dr. Rachel Bowden, Illinois State University
- Dr. Jupp Müller, University of Freiburg
- Dr. Sandra Steiger, University of Bayreuth
- Dr. Kevin Judge, MacEwan University
Sakaluk is a behavior ecologist who studies adaptations that promotes an individual’s mating success. Currently, his research group is investigating covert tactics that males employ to influence female mating decisions: in decorated crickets, males ply females with nuptial food gifts containing substances that reduce female sexual receptivity after mating. However, females are not merely passive bystanders in this evolutionary pas de deux. As Sakaluk and his group have recently demonstrated, females have evolved immunity to the anti-aphrodisiacs contained in males’ nuptial inducements. The results of this work are consistent with a controversial new evolutionary model that proposes that elaborate male courtship traits often evolve in the context of a coevolutionary arms race between males and females.
Contact
Scott K. Sakaluk, PhD
Distinguished Professor
School of Biological Sciences
Behavior, Ecology, Evolution and Systematics Section
Mail Address
Room 138 Felmley Science Annex
Illinois State University, USA
61790-4120
sksakal@ilstu.edu
Office: (309) 438-2161
Lab: (309) 438-5438
Fax: (309) 438-3722