Kay Lucek Fish Ecology and Evolution Eawag Seestrasse 79 6047 Kastanienbaum Switzerland

Phone +41 58 765 2202 Fax +41 58 765 2168 Office SL-B15 kay.lucek@eawag.ch

Kay Lucek

function 

• PhD Student in the group biodiversity dynamics

research interest

Understanding the underlying processes of ecological adaptation is a key factor to understand how biodiversity has evolved and how it is currently threatened. Especially early stages of ecological diversification allow a thorough study of the diverse processes involved. Biological invasion events provide a showcase for such events. My main research interests lie in the interaction of biological invasion events and the early stages of adaptive radiations, the role of phenotypic plasticity vs. the genetic opportunity of an introduced species as well as phenotypic diversification and evolution over contemporary time.

For my research, I use the threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) as a model species. This fish, introduced from different glacial refugia, has invaded Switzerland within the last 140 years. During this time, it colonized and phenotypically adapted to different habitat types.

research projects

• Phenotypic diversification over a temporary time scale using phenotypic variance-covariance matrices.

• Test for adaptive phenotypic plasticity in ecological adaptation.

• Investigate the potential role of phenotypic channelization over an evolutionary time scale using a comparative approach across different systems.

• Identifying the potential role of constraints on phenotypic diversification and further speciation by a comparative approach among different taxa.

curriculum vitae

Since 2009: PhD student in Ecology and Evolution at EAWAG in Kastanienbaum and University of Bern

2009, MSc in Ecology and Evolution at EAWAG in Kastanienbaum and University of Bern

2007, BSc in Zoology, University of Bern

publications

• Lucek K, Roy D, Bezault E, Sivasundar A, Seehausen O. (2010) Hybridization between distant lineages increases adaptive variation during a biological invasion: stickleback in Switzerland. MolEcol 19, 3995-4011 doi: 10.1111/j.1365-294X.2010.04781.x

• Roy D, Lucek K, Bühler E, Seehausen O. (2010) Correlating Shape Variation with Feeding Performance to Test for Adaptive Divergence in Recently Invading Stickleback Populations from Swiss peri-alpine Environments. In Elewa AMT, Morphometrics for Nonmorphometricians, Lecture Notes in Earth Sciences 124, DOI 10.1007/978-3-540-95853-6_10