Research projects (as main PI)
Wageningen University and Research projects (2024-)
The below three projects are my current main topics within the Centre for Genetic Resources and Animal Breeding and Genomics group. See the below links for some news about their progress:
Life on the edge (2021-2024)
Global change threatens biodiversity, with many species unable to respond fast enough to changing conditions due to rapid climate change and anthropogenic impacts. Population declines are our early warning signals for larger scale declines in species, so assessing the adaptive capacity of populations within species and quantifying their vulnerability under future global change remains a priority for biodiversity research. This is the focus of my recently funded and now completed project, “Life on the edge: A new informatic toolbox to conserve wildlife populations under threat from global change”, for which I obtained a 3 year grant from sDiv, the synthesis centre of iDiv (German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research). In this project I integrated ecological (traits, species distribution models), environmental (climate change forecasts, landscape connectivity) and genome-wide molecular data (neutral and adaptive diversity) for populations across multiple species in a novel, automated and extendable climate change vulnerability assessment framework. There’s some new developments coming soon for Life on the edge so keep a lookout here for more news! Collaborators: Orly Razgour (University of Exeter, UK), Brenna Forester (US Fish and Wildlife Service), Renske Onstein (iDiv, Leipzig, Germany), Malin Pinsky (Rutgers University, USA), Hjalmar Kühl, (MPI-EVA and iDiv, Leipzig, Germany), Sebastian Steinfartz, (University of Leipzig, Germany). Here is a recent talk at the European Reference Genome Atlas seminar series about Life on the edge.
Cryptic genetic diversity under climate change (2022-2023)
I study cryptic diversity within the Hyperolius mitchelli species complex across East Africa. This work is a follow up from Bwong et al. 2020 and generated a new genome-wide dataset for these to combine genetic diversity estimates with climate change forecasts and species distribution models, and predict potential future population declines. Collaborators: John V. Lyakurwa (University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania), Beryl Bwong (National Museums of Kenya), Hendrik Müller (University of Halle, Germany), Christoph Conrad (University of Halle, Germany), Simon Loader (National History Museum, London, UK), Sebastian Steinfartz (University of Leipzig, Germany)
Current collaborative projects (as co-PI)
Aside from my own projects, I am involved in numerous ongoing collaborations (also with students that I supervise). Some of these are listed below:
- Demographic history and diversification of Central African amphibians (PI Greg Jongsma, Florida Museum of Natural History)
- Anthropogenic impact on stress hormones and genetic diversity of the crested macaque across Indonesia (PI Marlen Kücklich, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig)
- The suitability of road verges for protected grassland plant species assessed at the gene level (PI Sabrina Träger, Martin Luther University, Halle)
- Conservation genomics of Alytes obstetricans in Germany (collaboration with Sebastian Steinfartz (University of Leipzig) and NABU EU-LIFE project)
- The genomic consequences of megafaunal frugivore extinctions on the palms of Madagascar (Laura Mendez Cuellar, iDiv, Leipzig)
- Evolutionary ecology of the mangrove species Lumnitzera across its range and the role of connectivity and isolation in phylogeographic patterns (Jeprianto Manurung, University of Leipzig)
- Micro- and macro-evolutionary dynamics of seasonally dry neotropical forests (Francisco Velasquez Puentes, iDiv, Leipzig)
- Mechanisms of rapid evolution in native and non-native populations of the invasive weed Conyza canadensis (Marilia Souza Lucas, Martin Luther University, Halle)
Recently published side projects (in the last ~5 years)
- The compilation of an amphibian checklist for Shimba Hills National Reserve, Kenya (here)
- Large-scale collaborative efforts on African amphibian evolution/biogeographical studies (here), (here), (here), (here)
- The effects of missing data on phylogenetic inference using short read high-throughput (RAD-seq) data (here)
- How environmental variability in chimpanzee habitats has a positive influence on behavioural diversity (here)
- Recent connectivity between chimpanzee populations and subspecies across Africa (here)
- The relationship between fruit colour and trichromatic colour vision in primates (here)
- A review on existing approaches in macroevolution and macroecology and their potential contribution to conservation (here)