Move Over Daddy-Longlegs, Mommy’s Here — Dr. Mercedes Burns
Dr. Mercedes Burns is an Assistant professor at the University of Maryland. She conducts research on the ways reproductive behavior is affected by demography, environmental factors, and evolutionary selective pressures Her taxonomic focus is species of harvestmen, commonly known as daddy-longlegs, from North America and Japan.
Although one might assume cooperation between females and males during copulation, Dr. Burns is particularly interested in the conflict present in mating behavior. In particular, females have a barrier-like structure which limits male access to the pregenital chamber. Her talk at the 2020 SICB symposium on Reproduction: the female perspective from an integrative and comparative framework is titled ‘Spermathecal variation by mating system in North American harvestmen’.
https://biology.umbc.edu/directory/faculty/person/OF19978/
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Harvestmen_Close_Macro.jpg