Hey, I am happy to be here and look forward to meeting you all, and spending hopefully the next two years here at the department!
I did my PhD and Postdoc at Aarhus and Aalborg University in Denmark where most of my work involved the use of Drosophila as a model organism. I worked with genomic and phenotypic consequences for populations with a small population size, and in particular how environmental stress affected these relationships. I also worked on thermal adaptation in relation to climate change, where I used experimental evolution of thermal tolerances, but mostly focused on developmental plasticity of upper thermal tolerances.
Here in Lund I will work with Charlie Cornwallis, and use the novel (especially novel to me!) study system, the facultatively group living ostrich (Struthio camelus). Ostriches can breed on their own, but can also breed in complex groups and cooperate to protect eggs against extreme temperatures. I will measure ostrich heat tolerance in relation to cooperative breeding behaviour and combine this with large pedigrees and genomic analyses to understand the genetic basis of heat tolerance and if it is linked to the breeding strategy of ostriches.
