New PhD Student Sergio Pérez Joins the Lab!
Sergio Pérez received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Tolima in Colombia and has since worked as a researcher in many institutions including the Max Planck Institute for Biology in Germany, the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, and Louisiana State University in the USA. Sergio is joining our lab to investigate the role of phenotypic plasticity in spatial dynamics and species responses to global change. He is especially interested in linking theoretical models of plasticity to experimental results from our flour beetle microcosms. Sergio joined the lab in August 2024 and has already dived into working with the beetles and reading the literature to develop his own research questions and experimental designs. In the meantime, he is helping with our experiments to understand geographic range limits and will help with some of the associated bioinformatics.
“I’ve joined the Weiss-Lehman lab to test whether phenotypic plasticity is a major driver of range expansions and rapid evolution in Tribolium castaneum.”
Sergio wants to study the role of phenotypic plasticity in range expansions and adaptation to novel environments.