Current
opportunities
Contact Greg Sword to discuss possibilities
if you are interested in working in the lab as either an
Honour's student, Graduate student, or Postdoc. I am
open to both collaborative research and supervision of
independent research projects on a variety of
ecological, evolutionary and behavioural topics (see
Research page for more info.).
Available Honour’s project
(Just snapped up! - more options coming
soon)
Title: Molecular ecological techniques to study herbivore
diets
Feeding is a fundamental process common to animals that can
affect all aspects of their life history. Some organisms
are dietary specialists and feed on a limited number of
resources. However, others are dietary generalists and may
consume a variety of different resources available in their
habitat. Determining precisely which resources generalists
consume is not a simple task. Traditional approaches have
relied on using microscopic techniques to match unknown
food items collected from digestive or fecal material to
previously identified samples taken from the habitat. This
process can be very laborious and sometimes generates
ambiguous results. Using generalist herbivores as a model
system, we are developing plant DNA-based molecular
diagnostic techniques to identify consumed plant species.
The use of two techniques, DNA macro/microarrays and
oligonucleotide flow cytometry, will be compared and
optimised for use in field experiments.