Experimental Evolution of Communities
Institut des Sciences de l'Evolution de Montpellier (ISEM)

Louise Noergaard

  • A short Bio:I’m a PhD student in Matt Hall’s research group at Monash University. I am interested in understanding how dynamics of a host populations, particularly host populations that undergoing range expansion or establishing in new habitat patches, influence the evolution of infectious disease. To address those questions, I am using a variety of model systems; for most of my work, I have been using the freshwater crustacean,Daphnia magnaand its associated bacterial pathogen,Pasteuriaramosa. However, just recently, I have expanded my research approach to include experiments using the ciliate,Paramecium caudatumand its associated bacterial parasite,Holospora. This work is performed in Montpellier, in collaboration with Oliver Kaltz and Emanuel Fronhofer.
  • Research overview:Before moving to Melbourne and starting my PhD, I did my Bachelor and Master’s degree in biology at Aalborg University. During this period, I was primarily working on different aspects of the invasive Raccoon dog in Denmark, and in a series of papers, I explored the effectiveness of eradication regimes (Rømer et al. 2015 & Nørgaard et al. 2014), foraging ecology (Mikkelsen and Nørgaard et al. 2016) and range expansion of this species (Nørgaard et al. 2017). Thus, the interest in understanding how dynamics of and within invasive and range expanding populations, and the altered risk and spread of infectious disease in expanding populations, led me to start thinking about how to test and explore predictions on the evolution of disease at the invasion front. Thus, supervised by Matthew Hall who is highly specialised in evolution of disease, and Ben Phillips, who has a strong background in invasion biology, I have a strong team of researchers to support me in my PhD journey.
  • Publications:
    • Elmeros, M., Mikkelsen, D. M. G.,Nørgaard, L. S.,Pertoldi, C., Jensen, T. H., Chriel, M., 2018. The diet of feral raccoon dog (Nyctereutes procynoides) and native badger (Meles meles) and red fox (Vulpes vulpes) in Denmark.Mammal Research.https://doi.org/10.1007/s13364-018-0372-2
    • Nørgaard, L. S.,Mikkelsen, D. M. G., Elmeros, M., Chriel, M., Madsen, A. B., Nielsen, J. L., Pertoldi, C., Randi, E., Fickel, J., Brygida, S., Ruiz-Gonzalez, A., 2017. Population genomics of the Raccoon dog (Nyctereutesprocynoides) in Denmark: insights into invasion history and population development.Biological Invasions, Volume 19, Issue 5, pp 1637-1652. DOI 10.1007/s10530-017-1385-5
    • Nørgaard, L. S.,Roslev, P., 2016. Effects of Ammonia and Density on Filtering of Commensal and Pathogenic Escherichia coli by the Cladoceran Daphnia magna.Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicicology. DOI 10.1007/s00128-016-1963-8
    • Mikkelsen, D. G. M.,Nørgaard, L. S.,Jensen, T. H., Chriel, M., Pertoldi, C., Elmeros, M., 2016. Mårhundens (Nyctereutes procynoides) føde og fødeoverlap med hjemmehørende rovdyr i Danmark.Flora & Fauna, 122 (3+4) pp. 101-114
    • Iacolina, L., Stronen, A. V., Pertoldi, C., Tokarska, M.,Nørgaard, L. S., Munoz, J., Kjærsgaard, A., Ruiz-Gonzales, A., Kaminski, S., Purfield, D. C., 2016. Novel Graphical Analyses of Runs of Homozygosity among Species and Livestock Breeds.International Journal of Genomics. Article ID: 2152847
    • Nørgaard, L. S., Mikkelsen, D. M. G., Rømer, A. E., Chriel, M., Elmeros, M., Madsen, A. B., Pertoldi, C, Jensen, T. H., 2014. Spredning af feral mårhund (Nyctereutes procyonoides) i Danmark.Floura og Fauna ,Volume 120, pp. 8-14
    • Rømer, A. E.,Nørgaard, L. S., Mikkelsen, D. M. G., Chriél, M., Elmeros, M., Madsen, A. B., Pertoldi, C., Jensen, T. H., 2015. Population viability of feral raccoon dog (Nyctereutes procynoides) in Denmark.Archives of Biological Sciences, Belgrade, Issue 67(1), pp. 111-117.
    • Madsen, A. B., Elmeros, M., Andersen, L. W.,Nørgaard, L. S., Mikkelsen, D. M G., Sunde, P., Olsen, K., Vedel-Smith, C., Jensen, T. S., 2015. De første analyser af ulvens (Canis lupus) føde i Danmark.Flora og Fauna, Volume 121 (1+2), pp. 55-58