Xaali O'Reilly Berkeley

I am a part-time PhD student in Prof Preziosi's lab. My current research focuses on the ecological genetics of habitat-forming plants in tropical systems: mainly, how genetic diversity of plants influences the associated communities of fauna and flora. To this end I am working with different systems, including epiphytic bromeliads in Ecuadorian rainforest and cloudforest, and the false-birds-of-paradise plant Heliconia stricta. I am also the associate director of the Timburi Cocha Research Station and design and maintain a number of websites including this one and those of the Pescando Para la Vida project, the Amphibian Conservation Research Symposium 2019, and Acids Oceans outreach project.

I am a University of Manchester Zoology graduate and have previously worked as a research technician maintaining the lab's tropical amphibian.

Broadly, I am interested in evolutionary biology and ecology, with a particularly keen interest in ecological genetics, community ecology, biogeography, tropical biology, and palaeobiology. I also jump at any possible opportunity for field work, with field experience in Ecuadorian Amazon, Andean cloud forest, Malagasy littoral forest, and Mediterranean terrestrial habitats behind me.

In my free time I write a lay biology blog (tambarikosy.blogspot.com) and paint. May be mildly obsessed with spiders and bromeliads.