We focus on several major axes of global change: climate change, urbanization and habitat fragmentation. Evolutionary responses are studied by means of long-term population data of hole-nesting birds as well as African rodents and African montan forest birds (in collaboration with TEREC, University of Ghent). We quantify natural selection using data on individual reproductive success and survival, and the potential for evolutionary responses through pedigree analysis and quantitative genetics. Studies on habitat fragmentation are closely linked with our investigations into dispersal and landscape connectivity. A new collaboration on climate change and phenology of the tree-insect-bird system has started in 2020 with Prof. Matteo Campioli (PLECO research group).
A recently finished project on urbanization focused on bird populations, bird breeding success and nest-associated arthropod communities (parasites and commensals) across Flanders, as part of the overarching SPEEDY project. We are currently extending this research also to landscape epidemiology of infections (rodent viruses, tick-borne infections) and a pilot project has been conducted to examine urban ecology in the Andes (Cochabamba, Bolivia).
In several projects we study the relation between the diversity of hosts and their pathogens, mostly viruses, and how this changes under anthropogenic changes in the environment. On an evolutionary scale, we investigate patterns of co-evolution (or not) of hosts and pathogens and host switching events.
In 2021 a new collaboration will start examining ecological drivers of selection on lizard morphometry in a BOF-GOA project led by the FUNMORF research group.
Main investigators: Erik Matthysen, Herwig Leirs, Sophie Gryseels, Erik Verheyen
Current postdocs: Léa Joffrin, Joachim Mariën
Current PhD students: Lisa Baardsen, Gerardo Fracasso, Thilo Heinecke (main affiliation: PLECO), Laura Cuypers