Margherita Collini

Biodiversity and Environment Research Group

Biodiversity and Molecular Ecology Department

Research and Innovation Centre - Fondazione Edmund Mach

Via E. Mach 1, 38010 - S. Michele all’Adige (TN), Italia

Tel +39 0461 615 ???

e-mail: margherita.collini@iasma.it

Education and training

Margherita studied “Science and technology for the environment and the territory” at the University of Padua. She obtained her Master Degree in December 2010, discussing a thesis on phylogeography and genetic variability of the alpine rock ptarmigan (Lagopus muta helvetica), for which she has done an internship at FEM-IASMA in 2010.

Since 16th June 2011, Margherita started as a PhD student at FEM-IASMA in the research group of Biodiversity and Environment, lead by Heidi Hauffe. Her PhD is part of the European collaborative project EDENext (Biology and control of vector-borne diseases in Europe), specifically of the WP1, Tick-borne disease.
Margherita will conduct a research on the population structure and dispersal of the wood tick (Ixodes ricinus) using a landscape genetics approach. She will sample, questing and feeding ticks across Trentino and from the main tick hosts species; then she will analyze them using different types of molecular markers. Moreover, Margherita will attempt to optimize a blood meal analysis technique for questing ticks in order to get further information about tick-host relations.
Obtaining knowledge about the dispersal capacity of ticks on a small scale, will give the possibility to provide estimates for parameters critical for the development of predictive models of tick-borne disease risks, also in the face of global change.