Dr Camille Parmesan is fascinated by species which have hybridised to survive. She is equally interested in the ethical and philosophical challenge that hybrids present to conservationists, some of whom see the solution as killing them off.

Listen to this article 12 min Listen to this article 12 min Dr Camille Parmesan is a climate change researcher who knows what it feels like to have one's habitat wither.

She has observed over decades how butterflies, her speciality, can find themselves marooned in an area made inhospitable either by rising heat or because it's become cropland.

advertisementDon't want to see this? Remove adsBut when Donald Trump became president of the United States and pulled out of the 2015 Paris agreement, Parmesan, who served as a lead author on a United Nations climate panel that shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former Vice President Al Gore, found herself in the crosshairs of the War on Science, with other researchers.

A scythe was taken to science funding, and climate change discourse was censored at the highest levels of government. So, she became a climate change refugee of sorts, and now lives in France, whose president, Emmanuel Macron, offered her a grant and a conducive environment to research biodiversity and climate change.

While she has not changed her own colours in spite of climate change denialism and political headwinds, she is fascinated by species which have hybridised to survive....