Future
Projects
Amphibians in drains: a novel survey method for citizen scientists
Amphibians regularly become trapped in drains, especially during migratory periods. As well as a conservation concern, this passively simulates a pitfall trapping exercise. I hope to ascertain whether numbers trapped in drains tracks well with local population estimates, and, if so, produce a 'ready-made', scalable method for assessing population size whilst saving some amphibians from an untimely demise.
If you would like to work on this project with me, please get in touch.
Do Fisherian runaway processes constrain genetic variation? An evolutionary model
In a time of rapid environmental change, sufficient genetic variation is required to enable evolutionary escape. Populations with unanimous preference-trait coupling could be: i) more likely to experience inbreeding depression; ii) opposed to reproducing with novel genotypes. I am learning to create evolutionary models to test this hypothesis under different scenarios.