Person

I am a computational biologist with main interest in movement ecology and spatial dynamics of animals and pathogens within the heterogeneous world they live in. I am mainly using theoretical simulation models to understand topics such as extinction risk of species or persistence of pathogens. 

During my PhD in the BioMove project I focused on the mechanism that drive disease persistence in spatially structured landscapes using classical swine fever, a pathogen infecting wild and domestic boars, as a model system. By extending a well-established agent-based model I aimed to understand effects of movement types and landscape structures on disease persistence. Furthermore, I explored seasonal and spatial differences in infection risk during an outbreak in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania (Germany) that lasted for eight years.

Project

Understanding the causes and consequences of dispersal remains a central topic in ecology and evolution. Dispersal – as a key process for evolutionary dynamics – is itself determined by ecological processes resulting from individual decision making and information use that generate patterns of gene flow and genetic differentiation. Dispersal may further act as ’equalizing’ or ‘stabilizing’ mechanisms  and mediate coexistence in communities. Thus, the coexistence of species and their different strategies are likely driven by an eco-evolutionary feedback loop. 

Using a conceptual modeling framework I am going to investigate the coexistence and joint evolution of different dispersal strategies in an animal community. Particularly, the project aims to understand how these strategies are driven by disturbances such as fragmentation impacting resource distribution and a spreading disease within this community which strongly interacts with the host’s demography. I am going to use a spatially- and genetically-explicit individual-based model where the movement phases (i.e. emigration, transfer, and settlement) are combined with a genetic algorithm approach.