Willem Talloen Willem has been working on various topics of developmental stability in birds and insects. He is currently working as a statistician at Janssen Pharmaceutica and finished his dissertation in the summer of 2006. Jessica Bots Jessica is studying the evolutionary dynamics of different colour morphs in damselflies. This includes trying to evaluate the costs and benefits of developing into a different colour morph, and fluctuating asymmetry is used as a possible measure of stress, next to other morphological and biochemical indicators. More information can be found here. Philippe Helsen Philippe is studying the phylogeny and population genetics of Opuntia cacti endemic to the Galapagos Islands. More info here. Xavier Baecke Xavier is working on the effects of stress during development of pulli of small birds in the nest. He is using zebra finches and great tits as model species. He colllaborates with Bart Kempenaers and Wolfgang Forstmeir at the MP institute in Seewiesen, and with Erik Matthysen. Boris Pellegroms I am co-supervising the work of Boris with Luc Lens who is at the University of Ghent. Boris is studying the effects of environmental stress on the development of wings in the speckled wood butterfly and is focussing on contrasting woodlands vs agricultural landscapes and studying possible interactions with inbreeding. Greet Meulepas As of the 1st of November 2006, Greet has joined our group and will be studying the evolution and development of the skull of the multimammate rat (Mastomys natalensis) under different growth trajectories in particular and of African rodents in general. Koen De Winne Koen studies zebrafish under various stress conditions to investigate the genetic basis of stress resistance and its link to developmental instability