With the increasing human effects on African tropical rainforests, a study on the human disturbance on understory trees in these forests had become indispensable. To fill this lack in our knowledge, prof. dr. ir. Olivier Honnay of the KU Leuven established a project on this disturbance on robusta coffee (Coffea canephora). The great Charles Darwin once said “In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.”, thus Prof. Honnay assembled a team of scientists from multiple institutions. As such, a research team of the KU Leuven (Prof. Honnay) in collaboration with the Botanic Garden Meise (Dr. Filip Vandelook), ILVO (Dr. Tom Ruttink; Dr Isabel Roldan-Ruiz), RMCA (Dr. Kurt Jordaens), UNIKIS (Dr. Benoit Dhed’a) and INERA was assembled. However, this team was still in need of two researchers. During the teams quest through the many recent graduates they stumbled upon two young biologists, eagerly wanting to join the project. Lauren Verleysen and Jonas Depecker became the chosen ones.
Lauren and Jonas will have the task to solve and compile the different research questions and insights emerging out of the multi-institutional collaboration. As a graduated functional biologist, Lauren will be responsible for the genomics part of the research. Au contraire, Jonas is a graduated population biologist and will perform most of the fieldwork and the research concerning pollinator/frugivore communities and gene flow. Both our young researchers will be supervised by prof. Honnay and furthermore guided by the co-supervisors provided by the collaborating institutions.
As newbies, we (Jonas & Lauren) are very excited to carry out the research and will keep you informed of our personal developments and these of the project.
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