Vicky Ying

Hi! I’m Vicky. I completed my undergraduate degree and Honours at UNSW, where I studied how chemical cues influence the establishment and persistence of stick insect populations. I’m now a PhD candidate working on the same stick insect species, because they’re incredibly cute.

Supervised by: Russell Bonduriansky

Project Title: Sexual conflict in a facultatively parthenogenetic system

Project Description: Sexual reproduction can be costly. Although it generates genetic variation that may enhance a population’s ability to adapt, it also requires substantial energetic investment in mate finding and increases exposure to predation and sexually transmitted diseases. In contrast, asexual reproduction enables rapid population growth and colonisation, but it can lead to the accumulation of deleterious mutations over time.

Facultative sex—where females can reproduce both sexually and asexually—is therefore often considered an optimal strategy, as it may combine the benefits of both reproductive modes. Despite this, facultative sex is rare among animals. Recent studies suggest that sexual conflict may be an important factor limiting its evolution.

My project aims to investigate the role of sexual conflict in explaining this rarity, using both theoretical and empirical approaches: developing agent-based simulation models and conducting experiments with the peppermint stick insect.