Male Shining flycatcher (Myiagra alecto) (© Wendy P. Tori)
Avian haemosporidian blood parasites (agents of malaria) infect bird species globally and these parasites have a long co-evolutionary history with their bird hosts. During my PhD, I investigated bird-haemosporidian interactions in both tropical and temperate bird species to understand the drivers of these host parasite associations, in collaboration with Dr. Pavel Munclinger.
These projects have shown that:
2. parasites can follow the hosts, but the magnitude of parasite migration depends on the strength of geological barriers,
4. host species experience different parasite pressures in different forest strata.
Currently. I am involved in a project investigating the drivers of specialisation between avian hosts and haemosporidian parasites in two sky island populations in Cameroon.