Personal Statement
I work at the Buxton Climate Change Impacts Laboratory with researchers from the Universities of Liverpool, Lancaster and Sheffield. My role involves designing, modifying and maintaining automated control systems that produce simulated climate change treatments on limestone grasslands. My interests and education include electronics, artificial intelligence and robotics.

Personal Statement
My passion is to understand and predict adaptive responses of organisms, and impacts on ecosystems, arising from widespread environmental change (e.g. climate, eutrophication).

Our investigations focus particularly on adaptation to temperature, and the fundamental impacts of body size, temperature, and resource flux on rates of biological processes at levels of organization ranging from individuals to ecosystems.

These biological processes include resource uptake, growth, development, population growth, ecosystem respiration and photosynthesis.

Working at the interface of ecology, evolution and physiology, we advance new theory, including novel metabolic scaling theory; perform experiments on whole ecosystems and populations; and carry out biological and ecological syntheses (meta-analyses) to quantify global trends.

Personal Statement
Professor of Ecology
Head of the Department of Evolution, Ecology and Behaviour 2010-2018

Personal Statement
Michael Berenbrink is a Comparative and Evolutionary Physiologist. He teaches Animal Biodiversity, Ecological Physiology and Phylogenetic Analysis on undergraduate and postgraduate programmes across Biosciences and Veterinary Sciences at Liverpool.

His research focusses on the evolution of mechanisms for environmental adaptation in animals, often directed at the oxygen transport chain. He is available to supervise PhD students across this broader area.

Michael has published in all leading journals of Comparative Physiology, and two of his landmark studies were published in the journal Science. He currently serves on the editorial board of four journals and has been a panel member of several international grant awarding bodies.

He has served as Convenor of the Animal Respiration Group for the Society of Experimental Biology for 10 years and organised more than 20 scientific meetings and sessions in several countries. His research is frequently featured in national and international media and he has been commissioned to write two Nature News & Views articles and delivered over 40 invited presentations across the world.

Research Overview
Michael Berenbrink is interested in the diversity of physiological mechanisms that animals employ in different environments or with different life-styles. The focus of his work is on the respiratory system of vertebrates, particularly the evolution of blood oxygen and carbon dioxide transport mechanisms and haemoglobin function.

Personal Statement
I am an evolutionary geneticist, working to answer questions about adaptation such as: Do sex and recombination allow rapid adaptation? Does sex-linkage promote adaptation? How do organisms adapt so rapidly to transposable element invasions? To address these questions, I mainly use flies from the genus Drosophila as a model. Recent work has focused on the evolutionary impact of transposable elements, including that of a recent invasion of a Drosophila species by the sterility inducing P-element.

I obtained my B.Sc. from the University of Texas at Austin, my Ph.D. from the University of Rochester (supervised by Allen Orr), and did postdocs at the University of Edinburgh (with Brian Charlesworth) and the Vetmeduni Vienna (with Christian Schlötterer). I stayed on as a group leader in Vienna for a couple of years, before moving to the University of Liverpool.

Personal Statement
I am a virologist who is broadly interested in what governs the interactions between viruses and their hosts. My current research interests now focus on two main areas:

1) Investigating vector competence for arboviruses. I am particularly interested in the three-way interactions between environment, virus and mosquito; and the effect of these interactions on transmission. My group is investigating the temperature optima, minima and maxima for both mosquito and virus, and hence which regions are at risk from invasive or endemic mosquitoes and viruses (both now and under future climate scenarios). I am also interested in the potential for viruses to adapt to different conditions, and consequently, the risk they may pose in the future.

2) Prediction of virus and host associations in order to anticipate and prevent future pandemics and virus spill-over from animal to humans. I am interested in predicting which animals viruses can infect, ‘hide’ in, and spill-over from into human populations. Which animals can harbour co-infections of related viruses is also of great interest, as many viruses, including coronaviruses, can genetically recombine to form novel viruses when they co-infect the same individual.

I gained an undergraduate and Master's degree in Biology from Imperial College London (2005-2009), before completing my doctorate at the University of Oxford in using and understanding Wolbachia as a means to induce cytoplasmic incompatibility and block dengue and chikungunya virus transmission in the Asian tiger mosquito Aedes albopictus (2009-2013). Since then, I have worked as a Postdoctoral Research Associate, through to now, a Senior Lecturer, at the University of Liverpool.

Personal Statement
I am an evolutionary ecologist with a broad interest in behaviour, ecology and conservation. I am keen to uncover fundamental principles governing behavioural responses in animals and how these feed back at the population- and ecosystem level. My current research centres on three themes: (i) biodiversity conservation and past/present/future links between human societies and biodiversity, (ii) the evolution and function of animal communication systems, and (iii) sexual conflicts and the evolution of reproductive strategies. In my research, I combine both theoretical and empirical approaches, primarily using ungulate study systems. I have been running the Masai Mara Herbivore Research Project in Kenya since 1998 and am a member of the IUCN Antelope Specialist Group. I welcome PhD students interested in (i) the behaviour, ecology and conservation of large mammals, particularly in low- and middle income countries and (ii) human-animal relations in Ancient Egypt.

Personal Statement
I studied Biotechnology at the Jagiellonian University (Krakow, Poland). Then, I moved to the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciencia (Oeiras, Portugal) where I did my PhD in Host-Microbe Interactions. Subsequently, I was awarded an EMBO Fellowship to work at the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology (Berlin Germany).

I have been a FEBS/Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at the University of Liverpool since March 2018.

Personal Statement
I am a theoretical ecologist (though I began my research career in theoretical physics), and I use mathematical models to understand how organisms interact with each other and with their environment. Biology has been described as a science of differences, and these differences manifest themselves at many levels: species use different strategies to survive, individuals of the same species can display a wide diversity of traits and life histories, and populations change over space and time. I am particularly interested in the ways that these different kinds of heterogeneity affect how species coexist, invade, and evolve. My research interests span conservation biology, evolutionary ecology, and epidemiology.

I teach ecology, statistics, and mathematical modelling. I welcome BSc, MSc, MRes, PhD students and postdoctoral fellows to my group to develop fundamental ecological theory, or to use models to address research questions in population biology from an individual-based perspective. Do email me if you are interested in developing a project.

I am the postgraduate research lead for the Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Behaviour. I am also the University of Liverpool's Academic Lead for the NERC Doctoral Training Partnership "Adapting to the challenges of a changing environment" (ACCE), which funds PhD studentships in the biological components of the natural environment.

Keywords: mathematical models, stochasticity, individual based models, spatial models, evolutionary ecology, epidemiology

Research Overview
Biology has been described as a science of differences, and these differences manifest themselves at many levels: species use different strategies to survive, individuals of the same species can display a wide diversity of traits and life histories, and populations change over space and time. I am particularly interested in the ways that these different kinds of heterogeneity affect how species coexist, invade, and evolve.

My principle research focus is on mathematical approaches that can take account of this heterogeneity without ending up with models that are hopelessly complicated. For example, to describe a population exactly one would have to know the characteristics of every individual in the system, but in many cases good approximations can be derived by describing the distribution of their attributes using a random process. For some years now I have been developing methods for quantifying the impact of spatial structure, stochasticity (noise), and other sorts of heterogeneity, which can be applied to the dynamics of a very wide range of systems of interacting populations.

Personal Statement
My research focuses on understanding the causes and consequences of invasions by introduced plants at multiple spatial scales, from individual plants to ecological communities, and through to the whole world (macroecology). I'm generally fascinated by plant communities and plant-soil interactions.

Before moving to Liverpool, I was an associate professor at Durham University (2016-2023). From 2011 to 2015, I was a senior post-doc at the University of Konstanz (Germany). In that role, I became a core team member of the Global Naturalized Alien Flora (GloNAF) database project, with colleagues from Austria, Germany and the Czech Republic. Find out more about the GloNAF project here: GloNAF project.

Personal Statement
I am an ecologist who uses mathematics. By formulating mathematical models that encapsulate the processes involved in particular species interactions, and applying these models to real-life data, I develop theoretical understanding of these ecosystems and make predictions that can be tested in the field or laboratory.

I am currently studying the nematode burden of Soay sheep (Soay Sheep Project), specifically how different immune responses to parasites may determine host fitness, and the consequences these within-host interactions have for the infection dynamics of the overall population.

Previous topics include: the symbiotic relationship between algae and their protist hosts; toxin-mediated competition in bacteria; bacteria-mediated competition between aphid phenotypes.

Key words: Ecology, mathematical modelling, parasites, symbiosis, competition, MCMC, #fixedterm

Personal Statement
I'm an IIVES Tenure-Track Fellow based in the Department of Evolution, Ecology and Behaviour (DEEB). I'm interested in the evolution of sexual behaviour and other reproductive traits in animals, with a focus on the processes of sexual selection and sexual conflict. I'm particulary interested in mate choice and sexual display behaviour, sperm biology and fertility, and male and female genitalia. I use a variety of approaches in my research, including behavioural studies in moths, beetles, bugs and flies, X-Ray micro-CT imaging to visualise reproductive organs in three dimensions, and meta-analyses to identify large-scale ecological trends acoss the animal kingdom.

I'm always happy to work with potential PhD students and postdocs on new funding applications- so please get in touch if you are interested in working at Liverpool. I also try to post all current vacancies on my personal webpage (https://liamrdougherty.weebly.com/).

Keywords: sexual selection, sexual conflict, mate choice, cryptic female choice, sexual signalling, meta-analysis, systematic review, publication bias, X-Ray micro-CT, genital evolution, sperm, fertility, reproduction, mating failure, climate change, animal behaviour, behavioural ecology

Research Overview
My big research question is: how does the environment influence animal reproduction? I currently investigate this in several ways, looking at a range of environmental factors, including the social environment (e.g. the presence of rivals), the biotic environment (the number of predators or parasites), and the abiotic anvironment (e.g. temperature); and a range of reproductive traits, including mate choice behaviour, sexual signalling behaviour, sexual ornaments, and sperm and ejaculate allocation. However, my research interest also broadly covers topics relating to animal reproduction, sexual selection and sexual conflict, and behavioural ecology.

Current and past projects include:

Climate change and infertility
- How will rising temperatures impact male and female fertility?
- Does female mate choice exacerbate or mitigate temperature-induced fertility loss in males?

The evolution of mate choice
- How does the environment influence how choosy animals are during mating?
- Are animals choosier when they are in good condition?
- How much do animals copy the choices of their rivals?
- How does the design of our experiments affect how animals behaviour during mate choice trials?

Sexual signals
- Does sexual signalling behaviour honestly reflect male condition or stress?
- Do sexual ornaments indicate male parasite load?

The evolution and function of animal genitalia
- How do females evolve to reduce injury from males with harmful genitalia?
- How does the size of a seed beetle's penis relate to his fertilisation ability?
- How do females control sperm transfer after mating?

Personal Statement
I am interested in understanding the occurrence and consequences of interactions between species in natural communities – with a particular focus on infectious diseases. My work focuses on the use of simple mathematical theory, coupled with experimental perturbations of natural systems, to reveal the extent to which species interact, and whether those interactions are important for the dynamics of each species, or the stability of the community as a whole.

In terms of infectious diseases, I am particularly interested in whether co-circulating and co-infecting parasite species interact inside hosts, and whether those interactions affect the host’s susceptibility to infection or disease by other parasites. I am also interested in how multiple host species combine to determine the transmission and persistence of parasites at the host community level.

Until recently I was the Programme Director of the NERC-funded 'ACCE+' (Addressing the Challenges of Changing Environments) Doctorial Training Partnership (Doctoral Landscape Award). This partnership spans the Universities of Liverpool, Sheffield and York, the Natural History Museum in London, the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology and the National Oceanography Centre, training of >100 PhD students in the ecological and environmental sciences. https://accedtp.ac.uk/

I am also the Institute of Infection, Veterinary & Ecological Sciences (IVES) Athena SWAN Lead.

Research Overview
I am interested in understanding the occurrence and consequences of interactions between species in natural communities – with a particular focus on infectious diseases. My work focuses on the use of simple mathematical theory, coupled with experimental perturbations of natural systems, to reveal the extent to which species interact, and whether those interactions are important for the dynamics of each species, or the stability of the community as a whole.

In terms of infectious diseases, I am particularly interested in whether co-circulating and co-infecting parasite species interact inside hosts, and whether those interactions affect the host’s susceptibility to infection or disease by other parasites. I am also interested in how multiple host species combine to determine the transmission and persistence of parasites at the host community level.

I can supervise PhD projects relating to the ecological factors affecting the transmission, spread and impact of infectious diseases in natural populations. I am also interested in evolutionary aspects of host-parasite interactions. Projects will typically involve the development of relevant theory, the application of mathematical models, and/or the analysis of ecological data, and may involve close collaboration with empiricists working on amenable natural systems.