I`m conducting my research on rodents, as a model group (short but variable generation time, sequenced whole genome, models in ecological and physiological studies) to test important evolutionary questions. The dynamic history of Sahara environment, with its frequent contractions and expansions of desert habitats, present ideal laboratory to study evolutionary changes on organisms, including many rodent species (e.g: Jaculus and Gerbillus). My former research have focused on the adaptive significance of variation in physiological characters (PhD project), sex dependent natural selection (pre-doctoral Marie Cure Fellowship) and geographic adaptive variation in morphological, physiological and genetic characters (post-doctoral fellowship, Finland). Currently I`m focusing on geographic patterns of genetic and phenotypic variations and environmental/climatic factors. One of the important aspects of the evolution on deserts is dynamics of prey predator interactions. I completed the Doktor (PhD) in Evolutionary Biology, Ecophysiology in 2008 by Jagiellonian University and Master Universitario in Environmental Biology, Vertebrate Zoology in 2003 by Nicolas Copernicus University. Main areas of activities • Ecological and evolutionary physiology. One can say that energy is an universal resource, essential for all living organisms. I am interested in how rate of energy processing (absorption and transformation to progeny) evolves, especially in particular ecological context. This is my oldest expertise, and subject of my PhD studies and first post-doctoral project. In this research line I am interested in ecophysiology of vertebrates - link between metabolism, life history and fitness. I cooperate with Dr. Miguel A. Carretero in developing this area in Portugal. Previously, in cooperation with E. Koskela and T. Mappes several research lines were focused in testing several aspect of energetics, like: energetic constraints of variation in like-history traits, natural and sexual selection and its energetic consequences, energy costs of mitigation of radioactive exposure, inheritance of metabolism. • Evolutionary ecology of desert dwellers. Desert organisms ere constantly exposed to extreme conditions, and in bare habitats suffer scarcity of shelter. It make them vulnerable to hunting pressures from predators, like birds of preys and owls, that, along environmental forces are expected to generate strong selection pressure. In this research together with interdisciplinary group of my collogues we are testing, using genomics, remote sensing, satellite and conventional digital photography analyses and contemporary genetics, if habitat and climatic variations explain polymorphism observed in phenotype and genotype. • Evolutionary consequences of mtDNA introgression. There are two main goals of this project. One is to estimate phenotypic effects of introgression and its potential adaptive consequences (experimentally estimated) and the other is to test potential introgression of nuclear markers of different physiological and adaptive importance. • Natural selection and phenotype. In this research I estimated the strength and direction of natural selection on ecologically important traits. The system is based on a microsatellite reconstructed pedigree of a wild population of a rodent species, the bank vole (Myodes glareolus). This project was initiated during my PhD studies in Krakow, Poland, together with Pawel Koteja, my former supervisor. At the same time I started a cooperation with Tapio Mappes, the supervisor/adviser of my current post-doc position in Jyväskylä, Finland. This study combined field work on natural island populations with artificially enclosed colonies and so we could both estimate natural parameters and then manipulate them.