Gilles de Meester
Born in Belgium, I am a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Dr. Oriol Lapiedra. I am a behavioral biologist or cognitive ecologist, interested in the selective pressures driving the evolution of animal cognition, and how animals use their cognitive abilities to face environmental challenges. I have worked with both fish and reptiles.
I obtained my PhD at the University of Antwerp in 2022, focusing on the ecology and evolution of cognition in lacertid lizards.
Afterwards, I did my first postdoc at Stockholm University, exploring the evolutionary link between brain morphology and cognition, using guppies as a model. There, I became deeply interested in understanding the neural basis of cognitive variation.
At CREAF, I will be part of the INVASIVE ARMS RACE project, where I will study the role of predation in cognitive evolution, using the ongoing invasion of the horseshoe whip snakes in Ibiza and their main prey, the local Ibiza wall lizards, as a model system.