Brief CV
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Bread wheat
(Triticum aestivum)
Creeping yellowcress
(Rorippa sylvestris)
Image sources: http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pooideae, http://www.plantimag.de/dat/0307107.html
2011-present - Junior Group Leader, University of Konstanz.
At the moment, I mainly work on mating system evolution, but I am also involved in projects on adaptation and evolution in invasive species, and occasionally distracted by poplyploid genetics.
2010-2011 - Postdoctoral Fellow, Centro de Investigação em Biodiversidade e Recursos Genéticos (CIBIO), Plant Evolution group (PI: Harald Meimberg)
Funded by FCT, I worked on a wild relative of hexaploid bread wheat, the invasive Aegilops cylindrica. I performed an experiment to test whether invasive accessions have evolved to become better at competing with bread wheat than native accessions. Alongside, I continued my work on polyploid evolution in general, among others theoretically exploring inheritance in polyploids.
2007-2010 - Postdoctoral Research Assistant, University of Glasgow, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (DEEB), PI: Barbara Mable
During my postdoctoral research I worked on mating system evolution in diploid Arabidopsis lyrata. In particular, I have been involved in a study of the demographic context of the loss of self-incompatibility, its causes and population genetic consequences. Thanks to our shared interests in polyploidy with Barbara I have also been able to develop my own research line involving polyploid evolution.
2002-2007 - Ph.D. University of Amsterdam, laboratory of Peter van Tienderen
- STIFT, M., 2007 Polyploidy and hybridisation in the Rorippa x anceps hybrid complex. Ph. D. thesis. University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
During my PhD I have become intrigued by hybridisation and polyploidisation and their implications for ecology and evolution. The model system was Rorippa (yellowcress), a genus that has diploid, tetraploid and hexaploid representatives, and was centered around the tetraploids of two different species that hybridise under natural conditions. My work was largely experimental, but also involved developing of a model to analyse inheritance in tetraploids. Although driven by an interest in autotetraploid evolution in general, my work has implications for plant breeding as well: most crops are actually polyploids.