I started my PhD, supervised by Astrid T. Groot and David G. Heckel, in march 2018. My project is funded by the IMPRS at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology and the University of Amsterdam.
My research focuses on the evolution of sex pheromone signal in Heliothine moth, more specifically on acetate esters variation in Heliothis sublfexa. A part of my project aims to better understand the genetic basis of acetates production. In this order, I'm tring to functionally characterize candidate genes that were identified with QTL analysis, by using CRISPR-cas9. Moreover, I also investigate whether acetates are costly to produce by conducting trade-off experiments on experimental lines, we selected to produce either high or low level of acetates.