Thomas Merckx

Trained at the universities of Leuven, Antwerp, Oxford, Lisbon, Louvain-la-Neuve, and Oulu, I focus on urban evolutionary ecology and more generally on global change biology, using insects as study models at both the level of individual species and species communities.
Collaborating with various experts, I investigate whether and to what degree insects can cope with global change stressors—such as the urban-heat-island effect and light pollution. Through experimental lab and fieldwork, I examine behavioral and morphological changes, while analysis of citizen-science data allows me to study shifts in phenology, abundance and distribution.
My ultimate goal is to provide evidence-based recommendations to mitigate impacts of urbanization and global change, fostering wilder ecosystems with richer insect communities that provide enhanced ecosystem services benefitting us all.

Selected publications

Merckx et al. (2018) Body-size shifts in aquatic and terrestrial urban communities. Nature 558: 113-116 

Merckx et al. (2021) Urbanization extends flight phenology and leads to local adaptation of seasonal plasticity in Lepidoptera. PNAS USA 118: e2106006118

Merckx, Nielsen, Kankaanpää, Kadlec, Yazdanian & Kivelä (2023) Dim light pollution prevents diapause induction in urban and rural moths. Journal of Applied Ecology 60: 1022-1031 

Merckx, Nielsen, Kankaanpää, Kadlec, Yazdanian & Kivelä (2024) Continent‐wide parallel urban evolution of increased heat tolerance in a common moth. Evolutionary Applications 17: e13636 

Van de Schoot, Merckx, Ebert, Wesselingh, Altermatt & Van Dyck (2024) Evolutionary change in flight-to-light response in urban moths comes with changes in wing morphology. Biology Letters 20: 20230486