People

HiLIFE Associate Professor in Evolutionary Ecology

Office: 5715 (Biocenter 3)
E-mail: marjo.saastamoinen@helsinki.fi
Phone: + 358 50 448 4471

• Life history ecology & evolution
• Dispersal
• Genotype-phenotype association
• Phenotypic plasticity
• Ecological immunology

Post-doctoral researcher

Office: 5413 (Biocenter 3)
Email: audrey.bras@helsinki.fi

Post-doctoral project : Spatio-temporal genetic variation of butterflies in relation to land use and recent population trends, parts of a newly established Centre for Ecological Genetics (EcoGenetics)

• Population genetics
• Landscape genomics
• Ecology and Evolution
• Human-driven environmental changes

Post-doctoral researcher

Office: 5716 (Biocenter 3)
E-mail: natalie.vandis@helsinki.fi

Natalie is interested in the evolutionary potential of wild populations under global change. She combines long-term ecological data of Lepidoptera populations with genomics approaches to find factors that influence the rate of adaptation.

Project: Assessing the adaptive potential of wild butterfly populations using temporal genomics

• Population genomics
• Eco-evolutionary dynamics
• Glanville fritillary butterfly (Melitaea cinxia)

Post-doctoral reseacher

Office 5205 (Biocenter 3)
E-mail: mariana.piresbraga@helsinki.fi

Postdoc at both University of Helsinki and SLU Uppsala funded by the Swedish Research Council. This project combines reconstructed coevolutionary histories and species distribution modeling to predict future species interactions. My favorite study system are butterflies and their host plants.

• Evolution of species interactions
• Diversification
• Ecological networks
• Host-parasite interactions

Post-doctoral researcher

Office: 5413 (Biocenter 3)
E-mail: arthur.rodrigues@helsinki.fi

• Community ecology 
• Macroecology and macroevolution 
• Biogeography

Doctoral researcher

Office: 5607 (Biocenter 3)
E-mail: Nadja.verspagen@helsinki.fi

PhD project “Insect stress tolerance across a latitudinal gradient”. Funded by the LUOVA doctoral programme (to NV, started in February 2020). Supervised by Marjo Saastamoinen and Michelle DiLeo.

• Adaptive potential
• Phenotypic plasticity
• Latitudinal clines
• Environmental stress

Doctoral researcher

Office: 5202 (Biocenter 3)
E-mail: patrick.heidbreder@helsinki.fi

PhD project "Survival Under Warming Climate and Adaptive Potential of Hybridization". Funded by the LUOVA doctoral programme (Jan. 2023 - Dec. 2024). Supervised by Jonna Kulmuni and Marjo Saastamoinen.

• Hybridization and speciation
• Evolutionary genomics
• Adaptive potential
• Thermal performance

Doctoral researcher

Office: 5607 (Biocenter 3)
E-mail: ulla.riihimaki@helsinki.fi

PhD project “Linking population trends to ecological performance in butterflies”. Funded by the Novo Nordisk Foundation as a part of project “The missing link: unraveling the role of genetic variation of beneficial arthropods in agro-ecosystems" (to Marjo Saastamoinen as a co-PI).

• Ecological performance
• Genetic diversity
• Population ecology
• Land use & biodiversity

Doctoral researcher

Office: 5716 (Biocenter 3)
E-mail: lola.fernandezmultigner@helsinki.fi

PhD project "Genetic diversity in Range-Shifting Butterflies". Funded by the LUOVA doctoral programme (Jan. 2024 - Dec. 2027). Supervised by Marjo Saastamoinen and Audrey Bras.

• Landscape genetics
• Spatial ecology
• Genetic diversity
• Environmental change & conservation

Technical assistant

Office: 5607 (Biocenter 3)
E-mail: juho.kokko@helsinki.fi

Project PLASTI-CITY: Urban evolution of seasonal plasticity across space and time.

Coordinator

Lammi Biological Station
E-mail: suvi.ikonen@helsinki.fi