People

Alumni

Dr. Luke L. Powell (Research Fellow)

Luke and I have been working in close collaboration to characterize species interactions in Central African cacao plantations. We use mist-netting for birds and bats, biodiversty surveys, and sophisticated diet DNA metabarcoding (in which prey of hundreds of birds and bats can be simultaneously identified) to construct novel Bayesian food web models with the goal of identifying and developing management plans for keystone species providing ecosystem services to farmers. Luke now has a position at CIBIO-InBIO, Universidade do Porto in Portugal. 

Nikita Maksimov (Research Fellow)

Nikita and I have been examining cocoa flower microbiomes and how pollination and farm management practices may influence these microbial communities. 

Dr. Imdad Ullah Salaar (Visiting Research Fellow)

Imdad worked on understanding how agricultural practices in the UK impact biodiversity.

Dr. Ivana Budinski (Visiting Senior Research Associate)

Ivana is a Senior Research Associate at the Institute for Biological Research Siniša Stanković, University of Belgrade. She visited our lab as part of the GCRF-funded Sentinel project and has conducted field work with bats as well.

Rachel McConnel  (Ph.D. Student)

Rachel's project uses DNA metabarcoding to investigate how diet changes for Blue Tit chicks and adults across an urban gradient in Scotland, and in both the winter and breeding season. Poor diet, and reliance upon human provided food (both direct and indirect supplementation) may explain lower reproductive success of birds in urban habitats. Rachel is funded by the IAPETUS NERC Doctoral Training Partnership and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. She is working in collaboration with Davide Dominoni at University of Glasgow.

Max Levy (Ph.D. Student)

Max's project involved using genome-scale sequencing to build a species-level time calibrated phylogeny for the oceanic seabird order, the Procellariiformes (albatrosses, storm petrels, and petrels). 

Laura Campbell  (Ph.D. Student)

Laura was co-supervised with Guillaume Chomicki. She investigated the evolution of mutualistic dependence among ants and plants. Laura was funded by the IAPETUS2 NERC Doctoral Training Partnership. Laura is conducting a post doc at the University of Edinburgh.

Mario Erandi Bonillas-Monge (PhD Student)

Erandi studied sexual selection and ornament honesty in Brown boobies inhabiting areas that differ in environmental quality. He was funded by a fellowship from the Mexican government's CONACYT program. Currently he is conducting a Post Doc with Jonathan Drury in our department.

Luiza De Araújo Romeiro (Visiting Ph.D. Student)

Luiza is completing her PhD at the Federal University of Pará in Brazil. During her visit she learned flower environmental DNA metabarcoding and became involved in collaborating on our larger cocoa pollination project.

Crinan Jarrett (Visiting PhD student)

Crinan is a part of our biodiversity and ecoystem services project in Cameroonian cocoa agroforests. She has recently completed her PhD at the University of Glasgow and has taken up a Post Doc with Barbara Helm at the Swiss Ornithological Institute, where we will continue to work together to investigate the diets of European migratory birds during the breeding and non-breeding seasons. We also worked together on the diets of blue tits.

Diogo Ferreira (Visiting PhD student)

Diogo is part of our biodiversity and ecosystem services project in Cameroonian cocoa agroforests. He is the bat expert on our team and has recently completed his PhD at CIBIO-InBIO, Universidade do Porto in Portugal.

Joan Ferrer Obiol (Visiting PhD Student)

Joan investigated the evolutionary history of the shearwaters and comparing two different genome-scale sequencing approaches: ddRAD (sequencing the region round restriction sites) and UCE (sequencing the region surrounding ultra conserved elements). Joan is currently conducting a Post Doc at Colorado State University.

Alejandro Martínez Flores (Visiting PhD Student)

In my lab, Alex worked on characterising Brown Booby MHC loci. This is part of a larger project in which he conducted immune challenges to help understand mate choice in these birds.

James Makins-Elliott (Research MSc Student)

James is used DNA metabarcoding to investigate diet of Blue Tit chicks in forest and urban habitats. Poor diet, and reliance upon human provided food (both direct and indirect supplementation) may explain lower reproductive success of birds in urban habitats. He explored diet variation within nests in each type of habitat, as well as exploring diet and survival/condition of chicks in nests that have been experimentally increased or decreased.

Pit Wang (Research MSc Student)

Pit is conducting comparative genomic studies of seals to investigate changes in effective population size through time and also examining signatures of selection underpinning adaptations for hypoxia and pressure tolerance in deep diving mammals.

Andrea Estandía (Research MSc Student)

Andrea worked with me to investigate the deep evolutionary history of the albatrosses and petrels, as well as investigating the possibility of cryptic divergence among endangered and possibly extinct petrel species. Andrea completed her PhD at Oxford University and has taken up a three year postdoc position there.

Joe Schackleton (Plant Biotech MSc Student)

Joe worked on analysing genome sequences of approximately 160 cocoa trees from Ghana. We are exploring genetic diversity and relatedness of trees, as well as the identities of the cultivars growing there.

Katie Clarke (Mbiol Student)

Katie also worked on analysing genomes of approximately 160 cocoa trees from Ghana. We are exploring genetic diversity and relatedness of trees, as well as the identities of the cultivars growing there.

Robert Almqvist (Mbiol student)

Rob undertook an ambitious project assessing how diet in urban and rural habitats impact the gut microbiome of blue tits and their reproductive success.

Jess Taylor (Mbiol student)

Jess worked on our biodiversity and ecosystem services project to identify the species pollinating cocoa trees as well as investigating birds and bats that may consume pests. The ultimate goal is to understand the role of biodiversity in providing ecosystem services in these agroforests, the habitats that promote their populations, and what management actions may encourage increased abundance and therefore yield for African cocoa farmers. She is now conducting her PhD at University of Bath.

Emily Rhees (Mbiol Student)

Emily investigated differences in diets of Great Tit chicks in urban and forest sites in Scotland.

Abigail Carruthers (MBiol Student then Lab Technician)

Abigail will conduct DNA metabarcoding of Central African birds to help identify species that contribute disproportionately to ecosystem services for crops (e.g. pest control) and/or biodiversity.

Emily Southwell (Mbiol Student)

Emily investigated evidence for dietary partitioning in migrant American Redstarts and resident Yellow Warblers in Jamaica. Her project examined dietary competition in two habitats and across two seasons.

Madeleine Harris (Mbiol Student)

Maddie's project involved investigating the microbiomes of wild grey seals, to determine if this represents one way that mums, who differ in their stress reactivity, influence the survival and health of their pups. This work is in collaboration with Dr. Sean Twiss at Durham University.

Lucas Elliott (Bioinformatics specialist)

Lucas is a satellite lab member working from his beautiful home in Canada on refining and automating our diet data analysis pipeline. He is also analysing data for our biodiversity and ecosystem services project, comparing dietary competition in resident and migrant warblers, and examining the data from our captive feeding study of American wood thrush. Lucas is now completing his PhD at The Arctic University of Norway.

Monica Olguin Villa (Lab Technician)

Monica worked on a project investigating diets of European migratory birds during the breeding and non-breeding season, in collaboration with Barbara Helm at the Swiss Ornithology Institute. Monica also worked on the GCRF-funded Sentinel Project to examine trade-offs and synergies between biodiversity and agricultural yield in Africa. 

Christopher Robson (Lab Technician)

Chris worked on the GCRF-funded Sentinel Project to examine trade-offs and synergies between biodiversity and agricultural yield in Africa. This project also examines questions of sensitivity of species to forest lost, and how habitat can best be managed to benefit both biodiversity and humans. Chris is now enrolled in the Masters of Marine Science program at the University of St. Andrews.

Adrienne Dale (Lab Technician)

Adrienne powered through samples to investigate dietary competition in resident and migratory Jamaican warblers (she was also an awesome field technician in Jamaica), as well as samples from a captive feeding trial with American Woodthrush. Adrienne is completing her Ph.D. at Texas Tech University.

Justin Milne (Undergraduate Student)

Justin worked in the lab collecting Cytochrome b and COI data from black-capped petrels (Pterodroma hasitata) to investigate population structure in this endangered species.

Ellen Cox (Undergraduate Student)

Ellen helped identify the diets of brown boobies via traditional and next-generation sequencing approaches as part of a project to investigate the influences of genetics and environmental factors in ornament quality and sexual selection in these birds.

Beth Mullier (Undergraduate Student)

Beth worked on our Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services project, conducting lab work to identify the diets of birds and bats in cocoa agroforests in Cameroon.

Katie Gregorovicsova (Undergraduate Student)

Katie worked on traditional Sanger sequencing of Brown Booby diet items.

Kyu Min Huh (Visiting Undergraduate)

Kyu Min visited from Tulane University during the summer and learned the lab techniques involved in diet analysis.

Annalora Irvine (Undergraduate Placement Student)

Annalora came to Durham as an undergraduate placement student from Cardiff University. Her project involved investigating ancient DNA preservation in Antarctic seal remains up to ~5,000 years old.