Supervisor: Dr Rob Salguero-Gomez
I will soon join the SalGo Team as a Marie Curie Fellow at the University of Oxford. My research spans the broad field of population biology, with a particular focus on the ecological and evolutionary processes shaping the structure (both demographic and genetic) and dynamics (spatial and temporal) of populations.
Over the past few years, I have developed a growing interest in the comparative biology of lifespan and senescence (ageing), particularly examining how species traits (e.g., reproductive mode, chemical defense), individual-level variables (e.g., sex, developmental and migration strategies), genetic features (e.g., sex chromosomes, mtDNA mutations), and environmental factors (e.g., climate, anthropogenic disturbances) influence within and among-species variations in these demographic parameters.
My research relies on an integrative approach, combining demographic, phylogenetic, and genomic tools. I mainly useectothermic tetrapods (amphibians and reptiles) as biological models, which have evolved a remarkable phylogenetic and functional diversity over 200 million years and are now facing a major global crisis due to human activities.
As a postdoctoral fellow in the SalGo team, I investigate how thermoregulatory mode (endothermy vs. ectothermy) influences lifespan across tetrapods and modulates populations response and resilience to global changes. To address these questions, I use the ECTOLIFE database, which I have been developing for over 10 years. This database combines longitudinal and cross-sectional demographic data from more than 1,500 amphibian and reptile populations worldwide.
