Current Member - Dr. Shelly Lachish
Postdoctoral Researcher
Dr. Shelly Lachish
Details
Name: Dr. Shelly Lachish
Position: Postdoctoral researcher
Email: shelly.lachish@zoo.ox.ac.uk
Autobiography
I studied Zoology at the University of Queensland (UQ), graduating with first class Honours in behavioural ecology in 2000. For the next two years I worked as a research associate at UQ investigating sexual selection and speciation processes using native Drosophila as model species. In 2003 began an academic internship through the National University of Mexico (2003–2004) and ECOSUR to study the behavioural ecology and population genetics of howler monkeys. I returned to Australia to take up a PhD investigating the impacts of devil facial tumour disease on the population dynamics of Tasmanian devils through UQ and the University of Tasmania. After completing my PhD in 2009 I worked as a post-doc at the University of Tasmania developing and applying non-invasive methods for monitoring cryptic threatened carnivores in Tasmania. I moved to Oxford in 2010 as a NERC funded post-doc on a project investigating the causes of individual differences in malaria infection in wild birds.
Research Activities
My broad research interests are in the fields of wildlife disease ecology, host-pathogen dynamics, conservation genetics, evolutionary ecology and behavioral ecology. My current research is focused on investigating the causes of individual differences in malaria infection in wild birds, and the role that host dispersal and environmental factors play in influencing the spatial and temporal variability of malaria prevalence. The ultimate aim of this research is to understand the causes and consequences of individual heterogeneity in infection risk and transmission rates from the perspective of both disease dynamics and host population ecology.
Selected Recent Papers
Lachish S, Miller KJ, Goldizen AW and Jones ME (2010) Evidence that disease-induced population decline changes genetic structure and alters dispersal patterns in the Tasmanian devil. Heredity Read abstract/paper online
Lachish S, Mann D, Pukk C, McCallum H and Jones ME (2010) Failure of disease suppression via removal of infected individuals to control Devil Facial Tumour Disease in a Tasmanian devil population. Conservation BiologyRead abstract/paper online
Lachish S, McCallum H and Jones ME (2009) Demography, disease and the devil: life history changes in a disease-affected population of Tasmanian devils. Journal of Animal Ecology 78: 427-436.
Jones ME, Cockburn A, Hamede R, Hawkins C, Hesterman H, Lachish S, Mann D, McCallum H and Pemberton D. (2008) Life-history change in disease-ravaged Tasmanian devil populations. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 105: 10023-10027.
