Theoretical and empirical insights into the ecology of oxidative phosphorylation in bilaterian metazoans

The energy that organisms use to grow and reproduce is made by stripping electrons from fuel sources and passing them to oxygen; a process called oxidative phosphorylation. For the first two billion years of life, oxidative phosphorylation was governed by a single genome and subject to a single form of selection: natural selection. In modern animals, not only is this process governed by two distinct genomes, each with their own unique inheritance patterns, but it is potentially subject to a new form of selection (in addition to natural selection); that is sexual selection. This thesis examines the consequences of these ecological differences in oxidative phosphorylation.