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The Durrell Trust for Conservation Biology
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CV
Research interests My research interests primarily centre on the molecular evolution of immune systems, in particular, the vertebrate adaptive immune system. In the current global biodiversity crisis infectious disease is a significant threat to endangered species and studying the molecular and population genetics of immune system genes is thus becoming increasingly important. Although conservationists make use of microsatellite DNA to catalogue genetic diversity, or lack of, and infer a number of basic population parameters, e.g., inbreeding, the non-functional nature of these loci arguably limits their utility as markers for fitness and population viability. Genes of the Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC), whose products are pivotal components of the vertebrate adaptive immune response and which tend to be highly variable due to adaptive evolution, may potentially offer conservation a set of markers with which to assess the viability of a population (at least with respect to disease) and be used, at least in part, in management of endangered species.
Other Research Interests Parrots are arguably the most successful of all aviangroups – they have a global presence, including here in the U.K., having colonised almost every continental landmass and many islands encompassing a variety of ecosystems and habitat-types. Consequently, the evolutionary history of the parrots is likely to be a complex one permeated with founder events, speciation events and extinctions. I am currently working towards building an extensive molecular phylogeny of the parrots of the old-world. See here for further details.
Previous Research
Patterns of positive selection at codons of MHC loci encoding the antigen binding region of different African mole-rats were observed to be related to expected differences in parasitism (as compared with the pattern of conservative evolution at MHC loci not directly involved in antigen binding which fell in line with that expected according to Wright’s shifting balance). In addition, the non-species specific clustering of MHC alleles in a molecular phylogeny (trans-species polymorphism) indicated the long-term maintenance of some MHC polymorphisms by selection even through speciation events. Some of these were inferred to be some of the oldest MHC alleles documented so far.
Publications Kundu, S. and C. Faulkes (2004). Patterns of MHC selection in African mole-rats, family Bathyergidae: the effects of sociality & habitat. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B. 271: 273-278. |
During my PhD I worked on characterising MHC diversity in the African mole-rats, Bathyergidae. This family of subterranean rodents are endemic to Southern Africa and live in a wide variety of habitat types (from mesic to xeric) and mating systems (from solitary to small family groups to huge social groups with a reproductive division of labour). The evolution of the different social and mating types appears to be strongly linked to the geography: solitary species such as the Silvery mole-rat tend to occur in regions typified by regular periods of rainfall and a consistent distribution of food resulting in a low risk of foraging; highly gregarious species such as the naked mole-rat tend to be found in arid regions characterised by irregular periods of rainfall and a clumpy distribution of food.