About us

Cristina Vallino

PhD student
Departement of Life Sciences and System Biology
University of Turin

e-mail: crisval91@live.it
Skype: crisval91@live.it
ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Cristina_Vallino
twitter: https://twitter.com/CristinaVallino

Project

Anthropic pressure and human-derived food effects on diet, feeding behaviour and habitat use in an alpine bird species in areas with different levels of anthropic pressure.

OBJECTIVE N.1: to understand the relationships between food availability (here intended as both human-derived and natural) and Alpine Chough distribution

METHODS:
A. altitudinal transects to know the spatio-temporal distribution of grasshoppers   
B. telemetry an direct observations of ringed individuals to understand the habitat use
C. isotope analysis and barcoding on feathers and faeces to study the diet

OBJECTIVE N.2: to evaluate the effects of a high anthropic pressure and a human-derived food 

METHODS:
A. ecotoxicology analysis to evaluate the presence of pollutants 
B. chemical analysis of food to state the difference in terms of chemical composition between natural and human food
C. body condition measurements
D. direct observations of foraging behaviour