Ana Carolina Varela Pereira

I am an evolutionary (developmental) biologist fascinated by the variation that exists in Nature.

My main research interests lie in a combination of Evolution, Ecology, Genetics, and Entomology. In particular, I am interested in understanding how external conditions experienced during development can generate phenotypic variation (i.e. look at the environment as more than a filter of the existing variation, through natural selection). I have been interested in developmental plasticity, the property by which the same genotype produces different phenotypes, depending on the external conditions where development occurs, since my master’s studies in Evolutionary Developmental Biology at the University of Lisbon (2020-2021). It was, in fact, through two courses taught by Dr. Patrícia Beldade and, after, some weeks at the Eco-Evo-Devo lab that I developed a passion for these topics (and butterfly biology).

At Kawecki’s Lab, my Ph.D. work aims to contribute to a big project addressing the general question: how evolution shapes animal physiology in response to prolonged exposure to juvenile undernutrition? Most animal populations face periods of food shortage, resulting in physiological stress and reduced Darwinian fitness. If sufficiently frequent, such periods of undernutrition are likely to be important factors of natural selection, leading to specific physiological or behavioral adaptations (Cavigliasso et al. 2023). Most juvenile animals do not have the option of arresting their development to wait out famines; they have no choice but to continue to develop and grow with whatever nutrients they can obtain (Kawecki et al. 2021).

After more than 250 generations exposing larvae to a poor nutrient diet, the selected population grows more on the poor diet than the controls (on a standard diet), but the probability of egg-to-adult survival is lower, which means that they have a cost – higher mortality. In my Ph.D., I propose to understand: 1) the role of a candidate gene – fezzik (fiz) which encodes an ecdysone oxidase acting on both ecdysone and 20-dehydroecdysone) in adaptation to undernutrition using Drosophila melanogaster; 2) the correlation between ecdysone oxidase activity and fiz expression; 3) the effect of fiz on composition and concentration of ecdysteroids and 4) the effects of fiz expression on metabolite abundance and nutrient acquisition.

Outside academia, I like to go to the field, identify (insect) species, collect some specimens, breed butterflies, draw and paint, take photographs, and do any kind of sports!

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Office room: BIO-2107.2
Phone: +41 21 692 4255
AnaCarolina.VarelaPereira[@]unil.ch

Member of Kawecki Group