Research interests
I am a behavioural and evolutionary ecologist broadly inter
ested in understanding phenotypic variation in wild animal populations. I study the factors and selective pressures hypothesized to maintain spatiotemporal phenotypic variation within and among populations. During my PhD, I investigated whether heterogeneous selection could maintain variation in exploration behaviour (or activity in novel environment) within and among several populations of great tits (Parus major) in Western Europe. After quantifying how much selection varied at various spatial and temporal scales, I aimed to determine whether winter food availability was a driver of behavioural variation within a population of great tits in southern Germany. I experimentally supplemented food for four winters to study its effect on phenotype-dependent fitness and phenotypic variance. Then, for my first postdoc, I examined spatiotemporal variation in phenology of two corn borer species, the European and Mediterranean corn borers (Ostrinia nubilalis and Sesamia nonagrioides), across France. After separating the generations, I studied whether first flight peak dates of corn borer populations were synchronised when geographically close or under similar climatic conditions. For my second postdoc, in collaboration with Monica Bond at the University of Zürich, I focus on variation in giraffe coat spot patterns and its effect on population demography from giraffes in the Tarangire ecosystem of Tanzania.
CV
- 2023- Postdoctoral researcher (UZH Postdoc Grant for 8 months), Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, Population Ecology group, University of Zürich
- 2022-2023 Postdoctoral researcher, IDEEV UMR EGCE IRD, INRAE, Paris-Saclay University, France
- 2017-2021 PhD Candidate in Behavioural and Evolutionary Ecology, Behavioural Ecology group, Department of Biology, Ludwig-Maximilian University of Munich, Germany
- 2012-2017 Research assistant, Database and Fieldwork management, Evolutionary Ecology of Variation group, Max-Planck Institute for Ornithology, Seewiesen, Germany
- 2010-2012 Field assistant positions to monitor great tit (Parus major) populations at the University of Bern (Switzerland), Max-Planck Institute for Ornithology (Seewiesen, Germany) and Edward Grey Institute, University of Oxford (UK)
- 2007-2009 Msc in Ecology, Evolution, Biometry, Universities of Rennes 1 and Claude Bernard Lyon 1, France