Sergey Gavrilets, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, was quoted in a New York Times story about monogamy. The article is about a study which looked at 2,545 species of mammals, tracing their mating evolution from their common ancestor some 170 million years ago. The researchers found monogamy evolves when females become hostile with one another and live in ranges that do not overlap. Gavrilets, who is also the associate director for scientific activities at UT’s National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS), noted that the study did not investigate monogamy’s benefits in lowering the risk of sexually transmitted diseases or the possibility that females chose to mate with males who repeatedly brought them food.