Coen Westerduin

My research focusses on the use of DNA-based methods to identify species; a fundamental aspect for many questions and applications in ecology and conservation. In collaboration with the University of Eastern Finland (UEF), Umeå University, and Luke, our Interreg Aurora-funded project "Rapid Detect" is aiming to develop Loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP), a typically species-specific molecular method, for easily monitoring and detecting endangered or invasive species in Northern Fennoscandia. This works follows from previous research targeting the African edible bush-cricket (Ruspolia differens) with LAMP, performed at UEF. In both projects, my responsibilities have been bioinformatics, curating reference data, primer design, and designing the overall protocol. Other recent (and partially ongoing) research includes using metabarcoding to describe the interactions in bird–arthropod and parasitoid–host food webs from boreal and tropical forests, respectively. The former of those was my PhD research also conducted here in Oulu, while the latter another project at UEF. Across these studies, molecular methods have been allowing us to describe and follow species and their interactions throughout their natural settings, and witnessing these previously cryptic occurrences and connections has been absolutely fascinating.