Dr Gerardo Fracasso

I'm an Evolutionary Biologist mainly working in host-parasite interactions, ecology and behaviour. After a master thesis on avian olfaction (University of Padua) I explored the realm of host-parasite interactions during my PhD at the University of Antwerp (Belgium). Here, I carried out a project on tick-bird interactions studying the causes and consequences of individual-based host and parasite variation (supervisors: prof. Erik Matthysen, dr. Dieter Heylen). My work on tick ecology briefly continued at the Institute of Tropical Medicine (Antwerp) before moving to the University of Sussex (UK). Here, I applied a similar individual-based approach to investigate the behaviour, ecology and physiology of ground beetles (PI: prof. Wiebke Schuett and prof. Jeremy Niven). Currently, I'm a UK Marie Curie postdoctoral fellow studying the intaction between pheasants, ticks and their microbiome in the beautiful landscape of Cornwall.