Wertheim Lab
University of Groningen - GELIFES & Wageningen University - Laboratory of Entomology

Research interests:

We study the evolutionary genomics of ecological interactions in Drosophila: host-parasitoid interactions, competition, sexual conflict and the microbiome. One line of research is aimed at elucidating the genomic variation in complex genetic networks and how it changes during the evolution of complex traits, using experimentation, genomic approaches and bioinformatics. Another line of research is these ecological interactions in the pest insect, Drosophila suzukii.

 Research organisms:

Drosophila melanogaster, Drosophila suzukii, parasitoids of Drosophila (Asobara spp and Leptopilina spp).

Expertise:

Drosophila immunity assays (melanotic encapsulation assays, gene expression), Drosophila parasitoid interactions (host-finding, host-acceptance, host-compatibility, host resistance, parasitoid virulence), Drosophila behaviour (laboratory assays, field experiments & observations), Drosophila ecology (resource use, population dynamics, species interactions), transcriptomics (microarrays, RNA-sequencing), genome sequencing (Poolseq, individual whole-genome resequencing).