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Hej! My name is Dafne Ram and I am a new PhD student at the Biodiversity Unit. I will study how birds and butterflies are distributed at the forest-farmland interface and how they respond to changes in land use and climate. I will work under supervision of Åke Lindström, Lars Pettersson and Paul Caplat.

I am from the Netherlands, where I completed my bachelor studies on nature and wildlife management. I then did my master degree here in Lund majoring in animal ecology. After my master I have worked on a project on forest bird trends with Åke Lindström and others at the Biodiversity/Monitoring group. I am very excited to continue working in this group as a PhD student!

januari 9, 2017

Inger Ekström

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I have just received my Ph.D. from the University of Oxford and I am now working as a post-doc with Charlie Cornwallis. For my Ph.D. research, I used birds as a model system to test predictions from inclusive fitness theory about the evolution of cooperation.

Charlie and I will develop some of this work and use phylogenetic comparative methods to improve our understanding of altruism in particular. Why is investing in another individual’s reproduction a better strategy for transmitting genes to future generations than breeding independently? What are the consequences of having altruistic helpers for subsequent evolution? Why do some groups with altruistic helpers transform into superorganisms but not others? Are superorganisms ’individuals’, allowing for adaptation at the level of the group? Hopefully nothing too ambitious!

december 7, 2016

Inger Ekström

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I am currently at Lund University on the last year of the International postdoc grant from VR working in Lars Råberg’s group with Borrelia. I am interested on host-pathogen interactions and to understand processes of diversification in pathogen populations.

I received my PhD at Linnaeus University in 2012 where I studied influenza A virus circulating in wild birds sampled at Ottenby, southern Sweden. I was investigating the seasonal dynamics of the virus in migratory hosts, costs of infection and the patterns in subtype diversity at the population and individual levels. The individual infection histories of re-captured mallards indicated that there was strong influence of the virus causing primary infections on the probability of secondary infection by a specific subtype. During the time as postdoc at The University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA I tested the influence of the primary infection on the re-infection patterns in mallards by performing experimental infections and exploring the development of cross-immunity to influenza between subtypes. Re-infection in the mallards with a range of  subtypes/different viruses indicates that similar subtypes of influenza induce strong protection against infection which implies strong competition in the system that may be driving the diversification of subtypes. Similar processes seem to act in the Borrelia system causing Lyme disease in humans. Therefore it will be exciting to explore the diversity of Borrelia!

november 29, 2016

Inger Ekström

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I am very happy to join the Lund Protein Production Platform (LP3) team. Throughout my research career I have been working on structural and functional characterization of membrane proteins. I did my graduate studies in Gothenburg where I primarily investigated aquaporins (in particular overproduction and crystallization methods). I then moved to Århus, Denmark, studying Na,K-ATPases and became acquainted with low-resolution structure determination approaches. Leaving Århus, I started as a post-doc at Novo Nordisk in Copenhagen focusing on an ion-channel protein. My most recent employment was here at Lund University, at the Biochemistry department, working with membrane protein-membrane/soluble protein interactions in the structural biology group of Susanna Törnroth-Horsefield.

At LP3, I will now be responsible for the crystallization facility: maintenance, assisting users, etc. Do not hesitate to contact me if you are interested in using the facility – we can then discuss how to best approach your target. See you around!

november 17, 2016

Inger Ekström

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