Entomology Doctoral candidate

Office: F08, First Floor, Life Sciences Building
Email: abbipret@gmail.com

BSc (Hons) Biodiversity and Conservation Ecology, North-West University (2015)
MSc, North-West University (2017)

Thesis title: Developing biological control agents for the management of the invasive tree Robinia pseudoacacia

Supervisors: Dr. Grant Martin & Dr. Iain Paterson

I’ve recently changed fields and came over from conservation and frog studies to join the Centre for Biological Contorl. For my Honours project I did a behaviour study on Chiromantis xerampelina (southern foam nest frog) in correlation with Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (amphibian chytrid) infection in Ndumo Game Reserve. For my Masters I looked at long term monitoring data, from 2006 to 2016, concerning the disease dynamics of Amietia hymenopus (Phofung River Frog), sampling in the Drakensberg Mountains around the Mont-aux-Sources area.

For my PhD I will be identifying and developing biological control agents for Robinia pseudoacacia (black locust tree) which is becoming a problem in the highland areas of South Africa.

Publications

Sarah M. Griffiths, Xavier A. Harrison, Ché Weldon, Michael D. Wood, Abigail Pretorius, Kevin Hopkins, Graeme Fox, Richard F. Preziosi & Rachael E. Antwis. 2018. Genetic variability and ontogeny predict microbiome structure in a disease-challenged montane amphibian. The ISME Journal. 12, 2506–2517. 10.1038/s41396-018-0167-0.

Last Modified: Thu, 14 Feb 2019 10:06:01 SAST