O nosso próximo convidado para os seminários em Ecologia e Evolução será o Dr. Dieter Heylenl da Universidade de Antuérpia.
O título do seminário será "Evolutionary ecology of host-parasite interactions: songbirds, ticks and Borrelia burgdorferi s.l."

Dieter Heylen is postdoctoral scientist funded by the Fund for Scientific Research – Flanders (Belgium) and works at the University of Antwerp (Biology department, Evolutionary Ecology group).  He has 10 years of experience in the study of ticks, songbirds and tick-borne diseases (TBD). In his research, he studies how the evolutionary ecology of host-parasites interactions relates to epidemiology, virulence, behavioural adaptations, and spatio-temporal occurrence of ticks and TBD.  In his more recent studies, he focuses on the vector-competence of host-specialized ticks for TBD, and their contribution in the maintenance and establishment of TBD foci.
In his seminar he will focus on the ecological interactions between ixodid ticks (Ixodes ricinus, Ixodes arboricola, Ixodes frontalis) and  the great tit (Parus major), and will discuss following topics: parasite virulence, host resistance and ecological specializations in the ticks.  Furthermore, he will present the results so far obtained on the transmission dynamics of Borrelia burgdorferi s.l. in the bird tick community.