Margaux Vanhussel
About me
Margaux is a PhD student working on the impact of the urban environment on jackdaws (Corvus monedula). She works on comparing several traits in three jackdaw populations along an urban-rural gradient in Cornwall, UK. The first chapter will focus on whether the parents’ investments (i.e., life-history variables and risk-taking behaviour) in their offspring are lower for urban individuals than rural ones, due to a less optimal environment. The second chapter will explore if urban jackdaws present lower stress levels (i.e., blood and feather corticosterone levels) due to habituation to human activities or because of specific behavioural traits. The third chapter will study the jackdaws’ cognitive abilities (i.e., associative and reversal-learning tasks) along an urban-rural gradient. Finally, the fourth chapter will look at whether there is any genetic adaptation linked to behavioural and cognitive traits witnessed along an urban-rural environment between jackdaw populations, and if the urban environment acts as a source or a sink for genetic diversity (i.e., candidate genes and 3RAD population genomics approach). This is a collaboration between BEC lab (N. Magain), Dr. Fany Brotcorne (Behavioral biology, ULiège), Dr. Alice Mouton, and Prof. Alex Thornton (University of Exeter, UK). Before that, Margaux did a MSc in Biology of Organisms and Ecology specialized in Ethology at the University of Liège (ULiège), and a BSc in Biology at the University of Brussels (ULB). She has submitted her master thesis 'Assessment of Ecological Factors Influencing the Winter Habitat Suitability of Erithacus rubecula Across Europe Through Ecological Niche Modeling' under the supervision of Miriam Liedvogel and Nicolas Magain. Apart from a previous field assistantship in bird ringing and tagging, Margaux is currently (May 2022) on an Erasmus+ graduated internship on the behavior and cognition of the Icelandic arctic charr (Salvelinus alpinus).