Plant Evolutionary Ecology Lab

People & contacts

Current group members

 Cala más corta

Dr Maria Clara Castellanos

Senior Lecturer in Evolution, Behaviour and Environment

m.c.castellanos@sussex.ac.uk

 

jpe

I am also the Editor-in-Chief of the diamond open access Journal of Pollination Ecology

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Dr Nicholas Balfour

Postdoctoral fellow

Pollination ecology and databases (funding from EU-Horizon and Eva Crane Trust)

N.Balfour@sussex.ac.uk

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Lucy Unwin

SoCoBio PhD researcher

Understanding the genomics and ecology of floral nectar to enhance crop-pollinator interactions

L.Unwin@sussex.ac.uk

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Julia Gegunde

PhD researcher based in CIDE, Valencia (Spain);
co-supervised with Juli Pausas

Ecology and evolution of post-fire flowering

julia.gegunde@ext.uv.es

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Rachael Davies

PhD researcher
based at the Millennium Seed Bank | Kew

Phylogenetic, ecological, and physiochemical correlates of seed lifespan

rmd20@sussex.ac.uk

Current Masters Students

Alba Edwards (nectar production and climate change)

Sophia Scheltinga Koopman (with Millenium Seed Bank, pollen longevity) 

Ben Goslett (urban elms as ecological habitats)

 Past members
yedra.corta3

 

Dr Yedra García

PhD (2019) based at CIDE in Valencia (Spain);
co-supervised with Juli Pausas

Plant-animal interactions in fire-prone ecosystems

Currently postdoctoral researcher at Lund University

 Chris Mackin

 

Dr Christopher Mackin

PhD (2022)

Floral evolution after range expansions

Currently Teaching Fellow in Biostatistics at King's College London

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Dr Andrés Romero-Bravo

PhD (2025)

Plant plasticity and local adaptation to new pollinators

A.Romero-Bravo@sussex.ac.uk

 Past rotation students

Adrian Kaluka: 2024 rotation student for UK Food Systems PhD (Factors that affect successful pollination in small scale urban food production)

Emily Millerchip: 2024 SoCoBio PhD rotation student (Nectar plasticity)

Past Masters Students

 

  • Tara Jeffery
  • Ben Reason
  • Kaja Piekarska
  • Cheyenne Derwin
  • Oliver Dhakal
  • Tom Murphy
Masters students co-supervised with Kew´s Millenium Seed Bank:
  • Mohammed Alajez
  • Zoe Benefer
  • Jemma Galton
  • Lucy Unwin
  • Xiangyu Yu
  • Alexandra Arthur-Worsop