Diana Silva e Vasconcelos

I graduated in Biology in 2019 at the University of Porto. Subsequently, I enrolled in the MSc programme in Biodiversity, Genetics and Evolution at CIBIO-InBIO.

During my MSc thesis, I was supervised by James Harris, Raquel Xavier and Isabel Damas-Moreira, investigating the impact of environmental and host factors (species, size, sex) on the gut microbiome of five species of lizards from Portugal. I also investigated the effect of blood parasites on lizard behaviour. This work allowed us to characterise gut bacterial communities using a DNA metabarcoding approach and to use genetic tools and microscopy to identify blood parasites.

Currently, I am a PhD student interested in investigating and gaining a greater understanding of the impacts of fires on ecosystems, particularly on small vertebrates.