Focus

“The adaptation of organisms to a changing climate”

In my research I aim to understand how the distribution of biodiversity is shaped by natural gradients and changes, which is of particular relevance in the light of anthropogenic climate change. Herein, I focus on eco-evolutionary patterns and processes on different levels, ranging from morphology to physiology and behaviour. Additionally, I am interested in a deeper mechanistic understanding, making use of experimental approaches and genetic tools. I prioritize integrative approaches to understand the big picture. So far, I have worked in taxonomy of onychophorans, physiology and behaviour in birds and aquatic insects, and studied genomic diversity in lizards. For my PhD project, I am focusing on holometabolous insects, particularly dung beetles and flies, along an elevational gradient in a tropical system.

Research Projects

PhD project – ongoing

September 2022– exp. September 2025

Doctoral thesis, University of Würzburg, Department of Animal Ecology & Tropical Biology (Zoology 3), Germany

Supervisors: PD Dr. Marcell Peters, Prof. Dr. Ingolf Steffan-Dewenter

“Patterns and drivers of the elevational diversity of dung beetles and dung flies in the Peruvian Andes”

Identifying the drivers of the distribution of biodiversity on earth is one of the biggest questions challenging naturalists, as already pointed out by Alexander von Humboldt in the 19th century. Energy, area and temperature are the most supported factors in previous studies, but we lack a mechanistic understanding of the processes producing biodiversity gradients. In this project, we use a completely forested elevational gradient (~200–3500 m.a.s.l.) in the Peruvian Andes to tackle this major question, with dung beetles and dung flies as model taxa of my subproject (Hymenoptera, Lepidoptera, and their microbiome targeted by other subprojects). We aim to disentangle the effect of climate, area, physiological constraints and resources on insect diversity. With the help of DNA barcoding we will assess this diversity and investigate functional traits, critical thermal limits and biotic interactions.

You can find details about this exciting project here: https://www.andiv.biozentrum.uni-wuerzburg.de/

Master thesis II

Supervisor: Prof. Dr. John J. Wiens, Dr. Ricardo Pereira

February 2022–August 2022: University of Arizona, USA

“Life at the edge: does genomic diversity in montane lizard populations predict extinction from climate change?”

Climate change has severe consequences on ecosystems, leading to a significant decrease in biodiversity: One in six species faces the risk of extinction in as business-as-usual trajectory. A strategy to cope with these environmental challenges includes range shift, i.e. local extinctions leading to range retractions and colonization events leading to expansions, mainly towards higher latitudes and elevations. Particularly threatened in this context are mountain species, facing the risk of getting “pushed off” the top. The spiny montane lizard Sceloporus jarrovii was observed to rapidly shift its distribution in the Madrean Sky Island mountain ranges upwards in elevation within the last years. However, populations of S. jarrovii across different isolated mountain patches occur to respond differently, with some warm-edge populations already being locally extinct and others without changes in their distribution—a so far unexplained pattern. In my thesis project, genetic diversity within populations based on RADseq data is going to be analysed to gain further insight this pattern. Furthermore, specific climate-associated alleles might predict if populations can persist increasing temperatures. This knowledge could advance our predictions of how populations and species respond to future climate change.

Master thesis I

September 2021–February 2022: Uppsala University, Sweden

Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Frank Johansson

“Challenges in a changing climate: the effect of temperature variation on growth and competition in damselflies”

Global warming is affecting biodiversity on multiple levels all over the world. Concomitant with a higher mean temperature, an increased magnitude of temperature change is predicted. These fluctuations are considered to be even more challenging for organisms than average temperature increases, as they have been demonstrated to decrease survival and performance. To date, only little attention has been paid to the effects of thermal variation on species interaction. However, the temperature-dependence of interacting species is a major driver of climate-induced extinctions and should be better understood to apply effective conservation measures. Insects are an important group to focus on in climate change biology, since they constitute the majority of all described animal species. Therefore, I investigated the influence of thermal variation on growth and competition in damselflies. This study advances our understanding of the biological consequences of fluctuating temperatures in the light of climate change.

For details, check out our paper published in Scientific Reports https://rdcu.be/cSyzN

Master

Research project, February–May 2021: Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Germany

Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Michaela Hau

“Offspring growth and parental investment in challenging environments in zebra finches”

In unpredictable, adverse environments parents are expected to invest into future rather than current reproduction to increase their lifetime reproductive success. But a high reproductive value of the current brood also provides more benefits to the parents, which is why parental investment is hypothesized to increase with the number of offspring. Through a constant food manipulation a challenging environment was mimicked, in which zebra finches were allowed to reproduce, and by brood size manipulations broods with different reproductive values were created. Offspring growth and parental care behaviour were analysed, to investigate if parental investment depends on brood size and if feeding rates can compensate for negative effects on offspring development in larger broods.

Scientific assistant, February–July 2021: Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Germany

“The impact of brood enlargement and thyroid hormones on growth and telomere attrition in zebra finches”

Seminar project, April–July 2021: Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Germany

“Functional morphology of social insects”

Bachelor

Bachelor thesis, 2020: University of Göttingen & Department of Zoology in Kassel, Germany

Supervisors: Prof. Dr. Georg Mayer, Prof. Dr. Christoph Bleidorn

“Description and phylogenetic placement of a new viviparous onychophoran species (Peripatopsidae) with head organs from Australia”

Onychophorans are a small group of terrestrial invertebrates, closely related to tardigrades and arthropods. To date, their diversity is highly understudied and a lot of aspects regarding their morphology, systematics and evolutionary significance are unknown. In this study, an integrative approach was performed to generate a comprehensive species description, which comprises various methods to assess the taxonomy and phylogenetic relationship of a recently discovered viviparous onychophoran species from New South Wales, Australia, with an elaborate, eversible head organ. The description firstly contains morphological analyses using light and scanning electron microscopy, which revealed a set of unique features. Thus, a new genus was raised as the species could not be classified within any described taxa. Additionally, the three-dimensional internal and external structure of the peculiar head organ was observed in this work for the first time, based on micro-computed tomography data and 3D reconstruction. Secondly, my karyological investigation revealed a species-specific karyotype and, in addition, molecular analyses were conducted for a phylogenetic placement of the new species and genus.