Elvira Lafuente

Building on this foundation, my postdoctoral research at the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology expanded to include the role of the microbiome in coping with environmental variation, with a focus on anthropogenic stressors. Studying freshwater isopods, with Prof. Räsänen, I investigated how chemical pollution affects host-microbiome interactions, revealing the broader ecological impact of human-induced environmental stress.

In my subsequent postdoc at Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência (Portugal) with Prof. Sucena, I delved deeper into the mechanisms of stress response, examining the physiological and evolutionary responses to pathogen infection. We focused on the Drosophila response to natural pathogens to disentangle the contributions of tolerance and resistance to these biotic stressors.

Looking ahead, I aim to integrate these research themes to gain deeper insights into how organisms cope with various types of environmental stresses. I will investigate the physiological and evolutionary principles that govern adaptation to diverse stressors by posing key questions such as: i) how adaptation to one environmental stressor influences responses to others; ii) how overlapping are the mechanisms employed in response to biotic (e.g., pathogens) and abiotic (e.g., pollutants) stressors and; iii) how the phenomenology of immunity (e.g., tolerance vs. resistance) can be used to better understand evolutionary responses to abiotic stressors.