Following the links on the left and above, you will find...
Different aspects of sex in a simultaneous hermaphrodite. [more]
Some Macrostomum lab methods, recipes, and hand-made gadgets that make our daily life easier. [more]
The results of work on host-parasite interactions with the water fairy Daphnia. [more]
Problems with overfishing and how to help as an individual. [more]
A small collection of non-academic interests. [more]
Below follows a brief summary of my research interests, a mini-cv, and publications.
Research Interests
[click here for details]
I'm interested in antagonistic co-evolution, the evolutionary pathway that results from the continuous interaction between two (or more) factions that have different interests over a common resource. I work primarily on host-parasite conflicts, and sometimes on male-female conflicts (aka sexual conflicts). The first in a beautiful water fairy: Daphnia magna, the second in a tiny, fascinating, cool, marine, and very sexy worm: Macrostomum.
Both host-parasite and sexual conflicts are selective pressures that can result in the evolution of traits used as "weapons" during interactions. Macrostomum, albeit being a simultaneous hermaphrodite, posesses a potenial "arsenal". I'm interested in its sperm morphology and behaviour, and their potential role in post-copulatory conflicts. [more]
The weapons of intracellular parasites are more subtle, and can for instance express themselves as life-history changes. [more]
Further (academic) Interests
[click here for non-academic interests]
The Sea fascinates me in its various depths. I've been lucky to be in it a bit:
In my Diploma Thesis, supervised by Freddy Losada, I studied the effect of habitat heterogeneity on community structure in marine invertebrates that live on macro-algae. With the help of Aniuska Kasadjian, I also studied the spatial distribution of algae in relation to the exposure to wave action and sediment.
During part of my undergraduate studies, I worked at the Laboratorio de Biología Marina, looking at mainly at biodiversity, reproduction, and morphology of molluscs, both in the field and in the lab. I also taught in several marine-related courses, and assisted several marine-related projects.
I further took a break during my Ph.D. to assist Lukas Schärer in Panamá, where we studied the effect of an ovarian parasite on sex allocation, at the reef, in the beautiful reef-fish Thalassoma bifasciata.
During my Ph.D., which was supervised by my former boss, Dieter Ebert, I tried to slowly increase the salinity of the medium where my daphnias were, in order to bring that fabulous system to some exotic warm and marine location in the world. No need to worry... it didn't work! Of course, now that I'm working with a marine organism, I see that the Sea is still far away...
Appart from getting closer to the Sea, I'd like to deepen my participation in conservation and sustainable development.
Curriculum vitae
[download full cv]
1989-1996: Diploma in Biology at the Universidad Simón Bolívar, Venezuela.
1993-1995: Lab and field assisstant. Laboratory of Marine Biology, USB.
1995-1997: Environmental impact assessment. IRNR, Caracas, Venezuela.
1996-1997: Orinoco Basin Exhibition. Museo de Ciencias Naturales, Venezuela
1997-1999: Modelling of ecosystem evolution, University of Basel, Switzerland
1999-2003: Ph.D. at the Universities of Basel and Fribourg, Switzerland.
2000-2001: Research assistant. STRI, "Crawl Caye Field Station", Panama
2004-2006: Post-doc/Lab Assistant at the University of Innsbruck, Austria
2006-2008: Lab Assistant, Ebert Group, University of Basel, Switzerland
since 2008: Research Assistant, Schärer Group, University of Basel, Switzerland
Publications
Vizoso, D. B., Rieger, G. & Schärer, L. in press. Goings-on inside a worm: Functional hypotheses derived from sexual conflict thinking. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society.
Roth, O., Ebert, D., Vizoso, D. B., Bieger, A., & Lass, S. 2008. Male-biased sex-ratio distortion caused by Octosporea bayeri, a vertically and horizontally-transmitted parasite of Daphnia magna. International Journal for Parasitology. 38: 969-979 [pdf]
Vizoso, D. B. & Schärer, L. 2007. Resource-dependent sex-allocation in a simultaneous hermaphrodite. Journal of Evolutionary Biology. 20: 1046-1055 [pdf]
Schärer, L., Knoflach, D., Vizoso, D. B., Rieger, G., & Peintner, U. 2007. Thraustochytrids as novel parasitic protists of marine free-living flatworms: Thraustochytrium caudivorum sp. nov. parasitizes Macrostomum lignano. Marine Biology. 152: 1095-1104 [pdf]
Schärer, L. & Vizoso, D. B. 2006. Phenotypic plasticity in sperm production rate: there’s more to it than testis size. Evolutionary Ecology. 21: 295-306 [pdf]
Vizoso, D. B. & Ebert, D. 2005. Phenotypic plasticity of host-parasite interactions in response to the route of infection. Journal of Evolutionary Biology. 18: 911-921. [pdf]
Vizoso, D. B. & Ebert, D. 2005. Mixed inoculations of a microsporidian parasite with horizontal and vertical infections. Oecologia. 143:157-166. [pdf]
Vizoso, D. B., Lass, S. & Ebert, D. 2005. Different mechanisms of transmission of the microsporidium Octosporea bayeri: a cocktail of solutions for the problem of parasite permanence. Parasitology. 130: 501-509. [pdf]
Mucklow, T. P., Vizoso, D. B., Jensen, K. H., Refardt, D. & Ebert, D. 2004. Variation for phenoloxidase activity and its relation to parasite resistance within and between populations of Daphnia magna. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B - Biological Sciences, 271: 1175-1183. [pdf]
Vizoso, D. B. & Ebert, D. 2004. Within-host dynamics of a microsporidium with horizontal and vertical transmission: Octosporea bayeri in Daphnia magna. Parasitology, 128: 31:38. [pdf]
Schärer, L. & Vizoso, D. B. 2003. Parasite-induced sex change in a sequential hermaphrodite, the reef fish Thalassoma bifasciatum. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 55: 137-143.[pdf]
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