Research
I am interested in animal ecology, more specifically costs, benefits and consequences of group living.
The study animal of my PhD projects is a social mammal, the Damaraland mole-rat (Fukomys damarensis) in the Kalahari Desert. The study population I work on is part of a long-term study population, and by using mark-recapture data from this population I investigate what factors explain growth, reproductive success and survival of individuals in this population. In another part of my PhD work, I took advantage of the data from the long-term population and combine it with fecal sampling to study gut microbiome composition of a wild social mammal.
