People

Elina Immonen, PI

Assistant Professor at the Department of Ecology and Genetics (Evolutionary Biology program) at the Uppsala University, since 2018.

Native to Finland, I did my undergraduate studies at the Jyväskylä University (MSc degree in 2008). I then moved to Scotland and did my PhD with Prof. Mike Ritchie at the University of St Andrews, working on reproductive genetics of Drosophila females, as part of EU Marie Curie Initial Training Network ‘SPECIATION’. In 2012 I came to Uppsala University, Sweden, to work with Prof. Göran Arnqvist as a post-doc and then as a researcher, studying for example sex-specific consequences of mitochondrial genetic variation and sex differences in gene expression.

Google scholar

Elina

Team 2022:

PhD students:

Philipp Kaufmann

I am interested in the question of how males and females can express sexual dimorphism in homologous traits such as body size and coloration, while sharing the vast majority of their genes. By using a combination of artificial selection, quantitative and molecular genetics we want to unravel and understand the genetic mechanisms that allow to reduce the conflict between the sexes over optimal expression of shared traits and therefore for sexual dimorphism to evolve.

During my undergraduate at the University of Basel (Switzerland, supervised by Prof. Lukas Schärer) I studied the impact of social environment on the reproductive behaviour of free-living hermaphroditic flatworms (i.e., outcrossing vs. self-fertilization).

Philipp

Milena Trabert

Milena

Postdocs:

Martyna Zwoinska

In my postdoc project I am investigating what are the genomic underpinnings of sexual size dimorphism by studying allele frequency changes in response to different forms of sex-specific selection.

Googel scholar

Martyna

R. Axel Wiberg

I am interested in the processes of sexual selection and sexual conflict as drivers of evolutionary change. I apply the tools of comparative and population genomics to understand the changes in allele frequencies and gene expression patterns that give rise to new or exaggerated traits and how they diversify in the context of sexual selection and conflict.

Google scholar

My website

Axel