We are an international and dynamic team that wants to understand how natural populations, from individual organisms' phenotypes to population level prosesses, interact with their environment - in particular in the context of anthropogenic change.
Our research is primarily empirical but with a strong conceptual basis, and 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 (e.g. maternal vs. direct genetic effects) and those between ecological and evolutionary processes (e.g. phenotype-ecosystem function feedbacks). We take a whole phenotype perspective, aiming to understand multi-trait adaptation from the physiological mediators to behaviour, morphology, life-history and the microbiome - and how these interact with ecological processes.
Our current main lines of empirical research are:
- (on stickleback of lake Mývatn, Iceland)
- Responses of a keystone species (the freshwater isopod Asellus aquaticus) to human induced chemical pollution
Our tools: We use large scale field and laboratory experiments, combined with field surveys, evolutionary physiology, quantitative genetics and genomics and statistical modelling.
Funding: Our research has been funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF), the Icelandic Research Council (RANNIS), the Swedish Research Council Formas, the Swedish Research Council (VR) and The Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag)
Student projects: We have different opportunities for BSc and MSc projects, as well as internship training. Contact the team leader, Katja Räsänen, if you are interested in a project in our team.
