co-supervised with Jacintha Ellers at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

In his PhD work, Dré is using comparative genomics to study the loss of traits due to interactions between the springtail Folsomia candida and bacteria Wolbachia pipientis. This springtail has become dependent on Wolbachia for its reproduction. Using a combination of lab-experiments and genomics he searches for the phenotypic and genotypic loss of traits that led to this obligate relationship.