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Annual Report 2012 Annual Report 2012 Metapopulation Research Group Department of Biosciences Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences University of Helsinki Helsinki 2012 Contact information Address: Metapopulation Research Group Department of Biosciences P.O.Box 65 (Viikinkaari 1) FI-00014 University of Helsinki Finland Phone: +358 9 1911 (exchange) Fax: +358 9 191 57694 E-mail: [email protected] www: www.helsinki.fi/science/metapop © Metapopulation Research Group Layout: Sami Ojanen MRG-logo: Gergely Várkonyi Face photos: Evgeniy Meyke / Sami Ojanen Printed in Picaset Oy Helsinki, January 2013 Contents & Foreword: Happy researchers .......................................................................5 & Brief history and overview of MRG ...........................................................6 & Research Projects ..................................................................................................9 • The Glanville fritillary model system ...................................................................10 Metapopulation biology of the Glanville fritillary butterfly: Ecological and evolutionary spatial dynamics 10 Genomics and genetics of the Glanville fritillary butterfly 12 Environmental stress and its effects on life history evolution in wild populations 16 • Metacommunity dynamics ...................................................................................18 Metacommunity dynamics of wood-decaying fungi 18 Parasitoid population ecology 20 • Coevolutionary dynamics and radiations ...........................................................22 Species Interactions in Metapopulations 22 Evolutionary radiations of dung beetles in Madagascar 24 • Mathematical ecology ............................................................................................26 Modelling dispersal and population dynamics 26 European Boreal Forest Biodiversity (EBFB) 28 • Systematic conservation planning .......................................................................30 Biodiversity conservation informatics 30 Conservation Effectiveness 34 Climate change 36 & Supporting personnel ...................................................................................... 38 & Synopsis of the year 2012 ................................................................................ 41 Publications 42 Honours and awards 49 Visitors 49 Teaching 50 Annual meeting in St Petersburg 52 Budget 53 & Prospects for the year 2013 .......................................................................... 52 Foreword Happy researchers Research groups are unusual work places, though I have to admit that I say so without knowing what any other work place would really be like. I believe that research groups are less hierarchical than most other work places, and very democratic in the sense that great ideas are always appreciated regardless of who puts them forward. Research groups tend to consist of individuals from novices (undergraduate students) to real experts, and many research groups, like our MRG, consist of students, researchers and supporting personnel with widely different backgrounds and nationalities. Most importantly, research groups are unusual work places because research is such an unusual occupation. We are in the business of making discoveries, pushing the frontiers of knowledge further and further. The challenge is to tolerate the uncertainty and the inevitable failures that are part of the exploration; the reward is the satisfaction that accompanies success, whether it is the PhD thesis completed, a new research paper, or the solution to something that you spent a lot of time in figuring out. However, as a starting researcher, you should not expect an easy ride from one success to another. If you do, the chances are that you will find yourself, sooner or later, doing something else in your life. Young scientists have to learn to get sufficient satisfaction from small enough accomplishments. Young scientists have to learn to love science, and especially their own science. If you don’t believe that what you are doing is really, really exciting and important, why should the others think so? Sometimes a researcher stumbles to results that were unexpected and which appear to offer a glimpse of a new horizon for research. I had this feeling earlier this year while examining possible links between environmental biodiversity around people’s homes, the composition of the bacterial community (microbiota) on their skin, and their atopic condition (level of specific IgE anti bodies; Hanski et al. 2012, Proc Natl Acad Sci US 109, 8334- 8339). It was a pleasure to work with enthusiastic researchers with very different backgrounds, from ecology to immunology, from allergy studies to metagenomics and bioinformatics, all passionately excited about what we are doing. Science is cool! Research groups are unusual work places because of the mobility of especially the younger members. Many new students and researchers have joined MRG in 2012. Our two new students are Ulisses Camargo from Brazil and Wolfgang Reschka from Austria. The new post docs include Enrico Di Minin from Italy, via UK; Kristina Karlsson Green from Sweden; Guillaume Blanchet from Canada; Benoit Barres from France; and Anton Chernenko from Russia (PhD in Helsinki). Others have left us, moved on in their life and career: Chris Wheat moved to Sweden; Emily Hornett and Maaike de Jong to UK; Charlotte Tollenaere to France and Tommi Mononen moved to Aalto University in Espoo. Very exceptionally, we had only one PhD student finishing this year, Heini Kujala, who left to start a post doc in Australia. So research groups are special work places – and MRG is a particularly special, and happy, research group, because we have such a great team of supporting personnel: Viia, Sami, Krista, Johanna and Aija in the office, Toshka, Annukka, Heini, Alison and Pia in the molecular laboratory, Suvi in charge of the butterfly laboratory at the Lammi biological station, and Evgeniy developing data management with EarthCape. Viia and Sami in our office are the key players in our team, without whom this research group would not be the happy community that we are. Ilkka Hanski 5 Brief history and overview of MRG etapopulation Research Group was plant-mildew system studied by Anna-Liisa Laine, the established by Ilkka Hanski 21 years ago, in community of wood-decomposing fungi studied by 1991. Ilkka had worked on the ecology of Otso Ovaskainen, and the radiation of endemic dung Mspatially structured populations since the late 1970’s. beetles in Madagascar studied by Ilkka. Atte Moilanen’s The early work was concerned with small-scale spatial Zonation software has attained worldwide reputation aggregation of individuals within populations and how in systematic conservation planning. In the past, MRG that might affect the coexistence of competitors. Since was primarily a research group in ecology, but this is the early 1980’s the focus had shifted to larger spatial no longer the case. The senior researchers have opened scales and to the dynamics of metapopulations, networks up new fronts of research to bring together population of local populations with relatively independent biology and state-of-the-art mathematical modeling demographic dynamics. Significant events leading to the (Otso Ovaskainen), molecular biology (Mikko establishment of MRG included the first international Frilander) and genomics (Rainer Lehtonen), as well workshop on metapopulation ecology organized by as developed new approaches to conservation biology Ilkka and Michael Gilpin (San Diego, US) in 1989, and reserve design (Atte Moilanen, Mar Cabeza). The which resulted in the first edited volume on the subject metapopulation concept is no longer as fundamental to (Gilpin & Hanski, 1991, Metapopulation Dynamics: our research than it was in the past, though processes Empirical and Theoretical Investigations, Academic related to the spatial structure and dynamics of Press, London). The long-term metapopulation study of populations remain the focus of much of our research. the Glanville fritillary butterfly in the Åland Islands in Finland was started in 1991. Current structure Current research The graph shows the growth of MRG since 1992. At present, MRG is a highly international group of 73 MRG is the leading research group worldwide in researchers (9), post docs (28), post graduate students metapopulation biology and one of the Centres-of- (23), and supporting personnel (13) representing 19 Excellence in research nominated by the Academy of different nationalities. MRG currently consists of seven Finland (national research council) for 2000-2005, research groups with their own students and post 2006-11 and again for 2012-2016. Our past strengths docs and largely own funding. We are united by the include successful integration of theory, modeling and shared Centre-of-Excellence funding, which supports empirical studies in the same projects. The Glanville a common office and other facilities. Equally, we are fritillary butterfly has become a widely recognized united by much interaction among the research groups model system in population biology, but other long- around four major research themes: term projects are increasing in prominence: the host- I Local adaptation, ecological and coevolutionary parasitoid system studied by Saskya van Nouhuys, the dynamics, and evolutionary radiations II Genomics, genetics and functional molecular biology III Mathematical ecology IV Ecological decision analysis and applied conservation
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