Christen Mirth

Research Group

Research Fellows

• Dr. Michelle Henstridge
• Dr. Nuno da Silva Soares (co-supervised by Dr. Patrícia Beldade - Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência)

PhD Students

• André Nogueira Alves (co-supervised by Dr. Matthew Piper and Prof. Carla Sgrò)
• Ansa Cobham
• Avishikta Chakraborty (co-supervised by Prof. Carla Sgrò)
• Jade Kannangara (co-supervised by Prof. Coral Warr University of Tasmania)
• Helen Rushby (co-supervised by Dr. Matthew Piper and Assoc. Prof. Zane Andrews)
• Teresa Kutz (co-supervised by Prof. Carla Sgrò)

Research Overview

Projects in my group cover a broad range of topics: understanding how environmental factors affect body size and shape, determining how the organs of the body coordinate their growth and patterning, investigating how environmental factors affect foraging choice, and finally exploring the evolution of plasticity. We make use of differences in the ecologybetween species of Drosophila fruitflies to understand how plasticity in morphology and behaviour evolve, and thebroad range of genetic manipulations possible in Drosophila melanogaster to tackle the molecular underpinnings ofenvironmentally-induced effects on development and behaviour.