Edward Page

Butterfly species in the neotropics exhibit a dazzling array of colour patterns in order to advertise their inedibility to predators. To share the cost of educating these predators, many species have converged to share the same warning colouration, and as a result distantly related species often look identical to one another. This creates an excellent system to answer questions about convergent evolution, and to understand the mechanisms which contribute to it - are these species using the same genes to produce their matching colour patterns, or have distantly related species evolved unique genetic pathways to achieve the same effect? I use a combination of lab, field and genomic techniques to answer these questions, and investigate other topics including the evolution of mimetic flight behaviour; phylogenetics and evolutionary history of the Hypothyris/Hyalyris clade of ithomiine butterflies; the genetics behind female limited polymorphism in Eresia pelonia; the genetic consequences of translocations and reintroductions in pine hoverfly; and the evolutionary basis of transparency in glasswing butterflies.
 
Alongside my research, I assist in teaching population genetics, bioinformatics and statistics to undergraduate students, and have helped to deliver genomics training to researchers from across South America.
 
I completed my MBiol degree at the University of York, where I first became interested in convergent evolution through a project researching mimetic flight behaviour in Heliconius butterflies - a passion which I continued to pursue in my PhD work.

Page, E., Queste, L. M., Rosser, N., Salazar, P. A., Nadeau, N. J., Mallet, J., Srygley, R. B., McMillan, W. O., & Dasmahapatra, K. K. (2024). Pervasive mimicry in flight behaviour among aposematic butterflies. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 121(11), e2300886121. 

NERC Adapting to the Challenges of a Changing Environment (ACCE) DTP.