Ussawit Srisakrapikoop

I can't remember exactly when I started to feel interested in nature. It may have been in high school when I started learning about biology, which I greatly enjoyed. I then completed a BSc in Biology at Silpakorn University, Thailand. I became a scholarship student for the Development and Promotion of Science and Technology Talents Project (DPST), of the Royal Thai Government, which has supported my studies since then. During my undergraduate degree, I developed a keen interest in insect life and this led to my undergraduate project on the diversity of chironomid larvae in paddy fields. After that, I completed my MSc Zoology at Chulalongkorn University, where I conducted my thesis research on the foraging behaviour and food preferences of the Singapore ant Trichomyrmex destructor, a highly economically important pest in many tropical regions.

I am now a doctoral researcher, working on the interactions between insect herbivores, their natural enemies, and ant mutualists. It is this latter group that I will focus on, trying to understand how variation in host plant quality, mediated by plant pathogens, alters relationships between aphids and their ant mutualists, and as a result the wider ecological relationships in this system.