About Me

Associate Professor, Evolutionary and Environmental Biology, Jyväskylä University, Finland 

- Academic guest at Eawag - 

Adaptation of natural populations to environmental change: dynamics and interactions

We aim to understand responses of natural populations to natural and human induced environmental change at ecological time scales (i.e. within a few generations). We study ecological and evolutionary responses of individuals and populations to environmental stress (acidification, micropollutants, predation), spatio-temporal dynamics of natural selection, and the molecular mechanisms of adaptation. We are starting work on the role of the host-microbiome interactions in adaptation to global change.

Our research is primarily empirical but with a strong conceptual basis. We are interested in both basic science and applied questions. An important core in our research are interactions between agents of selection (e.g. single vs. multiple stressors; selection vs. gene flow), the quantitative and molecular genetic basis of adaptation (maternal vs. direct genetic effects) and those between ecological and evolutionary processes. We take a whole phenotype perspective, aiming to understand multi-trait adaptation from the physiological mediators to behaviour, morphology and life-history.

Our current main lines of empirical research are:

1. Adaptive divergence along environmental stress gradients: evolutionary physiology and genomics of adaptation (amphibians in Sweden) - SNF 2017-2021
2.  Eco-evolutionary interactions in space and time: ECO-EVO-DEVO (stickleback of lake Myvatn, Iceland) - RANNIS 2019-2022
3. Host-microbiome interactions and adaptation to environmental stress (isopods in Switzerland) - Eawag DF 2019-2022

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Projects

Interdisciplinary project on biological effects of urban micropollutants

EcoImpact 1

Understanding how environmental stress drives shifts in species distribution and intra-specific phenotypic divergence with special emphasis on maternal effects that are key adaptations during early life-stages.

Adaptive divergence in response to environmental stress – and the role of egg coat mediated maternal effects

Our work investigates the evolution of natural populations in response to interacting forces of selection and gene flow, and the interactions between genetic variation, phenotypic plasticity and transgenerational effects in diversification.

Eco-evolutionary interactions in space and time: the role of ECO-EVO-DEVO

Understanding the long-term responses of biological diversity to environmental change in an alpine cryptic species complex of Baetid mayflies.

Eco-evolutionary responses of natural populations to climate change: insight from cryptic species

Using freshwater isopods to understand how gut microbiome mediates host function in the face of environmental stress

The Asellus triangle: the host, the microbiome, and global change

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