The International Research Fellowship Program enables U.S. scientists and engineers to conduct three to twenty-four months of research abroad. The program's awards provide opportunities for joint research, and the use of unique or complementary facilities, expertise and experimental conditions abroad.
This award will support a twelve month research fellowship by Dr. Holly H. Ganz to work with Dr. Dieter Ebert at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland.
This research proposes to address the importance of host heterogeneity on the ecology and evolution of parasite populations. Daphnia are an excellent model system with which to address general questions regarding the evolutionary ecology of infectious disease. This project consists of a set of experiments that will test how genetic diversity influences not only the transmission of one particular parasite, but also how interspecific interactions among parasites will influence the dynamics of each parasite population.
