Research interests
My general interests are the ecology and evolution of animal-microbial relationships. In particular, how these relationships become established and how their interactions impact the ecology and behaviour of the animal.
During my PhD, I am focusing on the gut microbiota of rodents and asking what controls the microbes we find within their digestive tract. To do this, I'm investigating how the ecology of wild UK house mice influences the fungal and protozoan species found within the gut. More generally, I'm also asking what dictates prevalence of protozoan species in the gut across a wide range of rodent species, via a meta-analysis. Additionally, I'm interested in developing a new technique to quantify the number of microbial cells found within rodent guts, which can be used to ask how and why microbes vary in abundance among rodent populations.
Publications
Davison H.R, Pilgrim J., Wybouw N., Parker J., Pirro S., Hunter-Barnett S., Campbell P.M., Blow F., Darby A.C., Hurst G.D.D. & Siozios S. (2022) Genomic diversity across the Rickettsia and ‘Candidatus Megaira’ genera and proposal of genus status for the Torix group. Nature Communications 13, article number 2630 (2022)
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