Dr Richard Bailey

Core Scientist (Research Fellow)

Biography

Background

My past research was primarily focused on the evolutionary ecology of birds and insects. My PhD at the University of Leeds was an empirical study of the behavioural and ecological factors allowing coexistence between two grasshopper species despite hybridization. My research themes since then have included the causes and consequences of speciation and hybridization, the evolution of ecological communities and food webs (primarily insects on oak trees), and pesticide resistance management (effectiveness of the high-dose-refuge strategy for control of resistance evolution in European corn borer moths on transgenic Bt-maize). In the early stages of my career I was principally an empiricist, but later moved into evolutionary genomics and transcriptomics, and most recently multivariate quantitative genetics. I am now focused on statistical model development, and recently released an R package, gghybrid, for Bayesian hybrid index estimation and genomic cline analysis.

My role at the Roslin Institute is in developing and applying data analysis protocols and methods to measure important host traits affecting pathogen dynamics: susceptibility, infectivity and recoverability. I am investigating the role of pathogen dose response in hosts on epidemiological dynamics, and developing methods for estimation of genetic effects in key host epidemiological traits based on both experimental and field data.

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