Contact:
Email: alexander.verry@univ-tlse3.fr
Twitter: @AlexVerry
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.co.nz/citations?user=aVFpoQkAAAAJ&hl=en
Biosketch:
Alex is a postdoctoral researcher within the AGES group interested in ancient DNA, conservation, and population genetics. Born and raised in New Zealand, he obtained his PhD from the University of Otago in 2021. His PhD focused on the use of ancient DNA to examine the impacts of past climatic and environmental change on New Zealand’s avifauna. Shortly after completion of his PhD he joined the CAGT laboratory as a postdoctoral researcher working on the ANR funded project Suscept-Ext.
Suscept-Ext aims to investigate why some species are more likely to go extinct than others. Using both common and threatened avian species endemic to the Mascarene Islands as case studies, this project will use ancient DNA to generate genomic time-series datasets spanning the entire period of human occupation of the Mascarenes for eight different species. By comparing and contrasting the genetic results, we hope to obtain insights into extinction risk more generally, and utilise the genomic resources obtained to inform the conservation and management of threatened species. More details concerning the project can be found here: https://anr.fr/Project-ANR-20-CE02-0009.
Selected publications:
Verry, A. J.F. (2021). Investigating the response of New Zealand avifauna to past climatic and environmental change: insights from ancient DNA. Doctoral Thesis, University of Otago.
Verry, A. J.F., Scarsbrook, L., Scofield, R. P., Tennyson, A. J.D., Weston, K. A., Robertson, B. C., & Rawlence, N. J. (2019). Who, where, what, wren? Using ancient DNA to examine the veracity of museum specimen data: a case study of the New Zealand rock wren (Xenicus gilviventris). Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 7, 496.