Asst. Prof. at UCLouvain 🇧🇪 // Head of the Animal Evolutionary Ecology lab // macro- to micro-evolution and lizard adaptations🦎
Simon Baeckens
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Excited to welcome Alice Funk as the first full-time PhD student in the Animal Evolutionary Ecology Lab at UCLouvain!
Alice will study how common wall lizards 🦎 respond and adapt to heavy metal pollution in contaminated post-industrial sites in southern Belgium.
Welcome Alice!
Crossed the 100-paper mark as an editor for #BiologyLetters (@royalsocietypublishing.org). Still impressed by the quality and range of science the journal publishes. 🦎
I’ll be joining the editorial board of FUNCTIONAL ECOLOGY as an Associate Editor, my number one ecology journal!
Looking forward to contributing to such a HQ society journal that has published some of my most favorite organismal ecology studies. Thanks for the opportunity @funecology.bsky.social!
Deadline for applying is 9 march. Don't miss out!
🦎 Funded 4-year PhD position on Lizard Evolutionary Ecology in our lab at UCLouvain (Belgium)! Apply before 9 March! jobs.uclouvain.be/Personnelsci...
We studied lizards from 12 Croatian islands and found substantial variation in their chemical signal profiles. Ecological factors didn’t explain it. Instead, divergence was best explained by non-adaptive processes 🦎🏝️ @oikosjournal.bsky.social nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
Humans are transforming the natural world at an unprecedented scale and rate. We, at #UCLouvain 🇧🇪, are organizing a symposium on how organisms, populations, and communities respond to these human-induced environmental changes. April 29–30, 2026! Join us: www.uclouvain.be/en/research-...
Three field seasons
219 lizards 🦎
>1,000 hours of behavioural video scoring
Proud of Ioanna Gavriilidi for getting this major chapter of her PhD on insularity and lizard behaviur published.
Serious dedication!
After years chasing lizards in pristine places abroad, now turning to our own backyard—seeing (whether and) how native herps cope with polluted, post-industrial sites 🇧🇪🦎 (Together with wonderful ULiège collaborators!)
First PhD paper out for Eleesha Annear—and what a start!
Her work uncovers surprising variation in osteoderm size and shape across populations, sexes, and body regions in a cordylid lizard 🦎 academic.oup.com/zoolinnean/a...
Simon Baeckens
Simon Baeckens
Simon Baeckens
Simon Baeckens
Simon Baeckens
Simon Baeckens
Simon Baeckens
Simon Baeckens
Simon Baeckens
Simon Baeckens
Island habitats often differ markedly from those on the mainland in many biotic and abiotic factors. Typically, they harbour fewer predator, competito…
