Research output per year
Research output per year
Emeritus Professor, BSc PhD Nott.
The University of Western Australia (M092), 35 Stirling Highway,
6009 Perth
Australia
I received my PhD from Nottingham University in 1986 and held a series of postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Liverpool until 1995 when I moved to UWA. I received an ARC Federation Fellowship in 2004 and was elected to the Australian Academy in 2009. I am Editor of Advances in the Study of Behavior, and a Research Adjunct at the Western Australian Museum.
My research uses both vertebrates and invertebrates to test the predictions and assumptions of theoretical models of sexual selection and life history evolution.
Research in my lab is focussed on five areas: i) sperm competition and paternal effects mediated via seminal fluid; ii) the evolution of animal genitalia; iii) natural and sexual selection acting on insect cuticular lipids; and iv) the effects of diet on reproductive health; v) the potential for sexual selection to promote population fitness. Collectively, these research programs seek to determine the direction and strength of selection acting on male and female reproductive strategies, and on the morphological and life history traits that contribute to fitness, from the whole organism to its gametes. My lab currently hosts collaborative research programs involving 4 PhD students and 2 postdoctoral researchers, and has hosted research fellows from Sweden, Finland, Spain, Switzerland, the US and the UK.
Opportunities are available for researchers at all levels, and I encourage interested individuals to contact me directly.
Lab Members
Postdocs
Yong Zhi Foo: Effects of macro- and micro- nutrients on male fertility
Jeremy Wilson: Conservation systematics and rapid taxonomy of Australia's most diverse genus of trapdoor spiders (Aname)
PhD students
Andrea Piccinini: The Australian wishbone spiders (Aname) in the Northern Jarrah Forest: sexual selection, diversification, and behavioural insights in a highly diverse mygalomorph spider genus
Boikhutso Lerato Rapalai: The adaptive potential of small, fragmented populations of a lizard inhabiting a rapidly changing environment
Alan Sabuna: Anthropogenic impacts on insect reproduction and their consequences for declining insect abundance
Rhiannon Foster: Phenotypic and genetic variation in maternal provisioning and ecosystem function traits in the dung beetle Onthophagus taurus (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae)
Harriet O'Roarty: The impact of nutrition on male and female life history traits in a lepidopteran pest, Plodia interpunctella
Kim Wong: How ants think: The role of cognition, individual, and social learning on complex behaviour in Western Australian ants (Hymenoptera)
Avantica Deep Sharma: Competition among females and males in West Australian magpies
Jackson Rendall: Conservation genomics and climate adaptation in the Idiosoma nigrum group trapdoor spiders
Adjunct Research Associates
Dr Paco Garcia Gonzalez (Doñana Biological Station - CSIC)
Professor Mark Harvey (Western Australian Museum)
Current Funding
ARC Discovery Project (2022-2024). Choosing to persist: sexual selection in the wild
ABRS (2022-2024) Conservation systematics and rapid taxonomy of Australia's most diverse genus of trapdoor spiders (Aname)
ARC Discovery Project (2025-2027) Life on the rocks: rapid adaptation in the wild
In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to journal › Conference article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Simmons, L. (Creator), The University of Western Australia, 4 Dec 2019
Dataset
Simmons, L. (Creator), The University of Western Australia, 3 May 2021
DOI: 10.26182/v3gc-b786
Dataset
Simmons, L. (Creator), The University of Western Australia, 3 Jul 2018
Dataset
Simmons, L. (Creator), The University of Western Australia, 27 Feb 2017
Dataset
Simmons, L. (Creator), The University of Western Australia, 14 Aug 2014
Dataset
Rapalai, B. L. (Investigator 01), Lebas, N. (Investigator 02) & Simmons, L. (Investigator 03)
Ecological Society of Australia
30/03/25 → 29/03/26
Project: Research
Lebas, N. (Investigator 01) & Simmons, L. (Investigator 02)
ARC Australian Research Council
4/03/25 → 3/03/28
Project: Research
Lebas, N. (Investigator 01), Simmons, L. (Investigator 02) & Rapalai, B. L. (Investigator 03)
Goldfields Environmental Management Group (GEMG)
3/02/25 → 2/02/26
Project: Research
Piccinini, A. (Investigator 01), Simmons, L. (Investigator 02), Harvey, M. (Investigator 03), Wilson, J. (Investigator 04) & Rix, M. (Investigator 05)
Ecological Society of Australia
1/01/25 → 31/12/25
Project: Research
Simmons, L. (Investigator 01) & Tomkins, J. (Investigator 02)
ARC Australian Research Council
1/01/22 → 31/12/25
Project: Research
Simmons, L. (Recipient), 2025
Prize: Fellowship
Simmons, L. (Recipient), 2008
Prize: Award