Halil Kesselring

Botanisches Institut der Universität Basel
Schönbeinstrasse 6, 4056 Basel (Schweiz)
Tel. ++41 (0)61 267 29 76, Fax ++41 (0)61 267 29 80
Halil.Kesselring@unibas.ch

2011-present	PhD in population and evolutionary biology of alpine plants, University of Basel. Project title: “How local adaptation and phenotypic plasticity allow plants to survive in a changing alpine landscape: effects of fine-grained vs. coarse-grained environmental variability”. Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Jürg Stöcklin
2009-2010	Master of Science, with a major in Animal Biology, University of Basel and University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. Thesis Projects: “Initial offspring size mediates trade-off between fecundity and longevity in the field” and “The size and spatial correlation of small-scale disturbances affect dynamics of an austral fouling community”. Supervisor: Dr. Dustin Marshall
2005-2009	Bachelor of Science, in Integrative Biology, University of Basel.

Local adaptation and phenotypic plasticity in alpine plants.
I am particularly interested in the relationship between environmental variation and species evolutionary strategies and responses. In this PhD thesis we try to figure out how the granularity of environmental variation is linked to survival strategies of alpine plants. More precisely, we look at phenotypic plasticity and local adaptation as two fundamental evolutionary strategies and how they are linked to coarse-grained and fine-grained environmental variability.