Visiting PhD Student

My PhD project is focused on the interactions between large herbivores and foliar fungal pathogens. Fungal pathogens play a crucial role in influencing plant diversity and productivity in grassland. However, we lack a mechanistic understanding of the drivers of fungal pathogen prevalence and infection. I’m interested in exploring how herbivore grazing affects plant diseases in grasslands and testing the dilution effect. In addition, pathogens can catalyse or inhibit interactions between their hosts and other species, but the ecosystem-level effects of such interaction modifications are poorly understood. Another aspect of my project is to assess how fungal pathogens regulate the top-down impacts of large herbivores on plant communities. I also test the biodiversity-disease relationship and the dilution effects in PaNDiv experiments.