ISABEL DAMAS MOREIRA
Behavioural Ecologist
STUDENTS
These are the excellent students I have had the pleasure of working with on different projects since 2020.
Avery Maune
PhD student (since 2022)
Avery is a PhD student in the Urban Lizards project. Her research focuses on how urbanization impacts social behaviour and includes an impressive comprehensive review on the topic (Biological Reviews, in press). She studies how urban environments shape lizard social behaviour (read publication), with a particular emphasis on social interactions and dynamics within and between species, primarily in Podarcis lizards. She is currently finishing analyzing all the data collected over the past 3 years and will soon wrap up her PhD thesis in a brilliant way.
Katharina Diederichs
MSc thesis (since 2024)
​Kathi has been working on understanding how the chemical composition differs between lizard species sharing the same habitat (Podarcis and Algyroides spp.), and whether urbanization can cause alterations in this communication channel (in prep). Kathi is co-supervised by Prof. Dr. Barbara Caspers and is currently writing her MSc thesis.
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Tobias Wittenbreder
MSc thesis (2024-2025); Field assistant (2024); Research module for MSc (2023-2024)
​Tobias was involved in three different projects in the group. He participated in many long hours of scoring experimental videos on lizard social behaviour (in prep) and collected field data on social networks in the common wall lizard (Podarcis muralis) in Croatia (read publication). He also completed his MSc in the group with a thesis on monitoring a protected lizard species in Germany, the sand lizard (Lacerta agilis), co-supervised by Michael Schulte. Tobias is currently working as Environmental Planner in Pabsch Ingenieure, Hildesheim, Germany.
Jonathan Berger
Research module for MSc (2024-2025)
​Jonathan completed a research module within the group on an automated method for scoring exploratory behaviour metrics in lizards from field experiments across an urban gradient (in prep). Jonathan is currently carrying out his MSc thesis on the automatisation of fire salamander measurements using computer vision from photographs.
Carolin Stober
MSc thesis (2022-2024); Field assistant (2022-2023); Research module for MSc (2021-2022)
​Carolin started in the group by scoring videos of a cognitive task performed in the field (read publication), and later joined two complete field seasons in Croatia (a total of six months) as a field assistant. During these seasons, Carolin also collected data for her MSc thesis, in which she subsequently analysed differences in the gut microbiome of different lizard species with varying tolerance to urban environments (genera Podarcis and Algyroides; in prep), co-supervised by Prof. Dr. Öncü Maraci. Carolin is currently working as Environmental Planner in Hamm, Germany.
Georgios Drosopoulos
Research module for MSc (2021-2022)
​Georgios completed a research module in the group, during which he spent many long hours scoring experimental videos of a cognitive task conducted in the field on urban and non-urban lizard populations (read publication). Georgios is now working as Conservation Officer in the Hellenic Ornithological Society, Greece.
Isabel Ferreira
MSc thesis (2020-2021)
Isabel completed her MSc thesis on variation in blood parasites of the Aegean wall lizard (Podarcis erhardii) across Greek island populations differing in environmental characteristics (read publication), co-supervised by Prof. Dr. James Harris. Isabel is currently pursuing a PhD on how urbanization affects diet, viral and bacterial resistance, and parasites in lizards at the University of Porto, Portugal.
Diana Vasconcelos
MSc thesis (2020-2021)
Diana completed her MSc thesis on differences in the microbiome of several lizard species (invasive and native) from Portugal (read publication), co-supervised by Prof. Dr. James Harris. She continues this line of research and is currently pursuing her PhD on the impact of fire on lizard hosts' microbiome and parasites at CIBIO, University of Porto, Portugal.
at the University of Porto, Portugal.