Plant Epigenomics and Adaptation

Plant Epigenomics and Adaptation (PEA) are a newly established research group in the Department of Organismal and Evolutionary Biology. We are interested in the role of epigenetics and related mechanisms in ecology and evolution. Primarily using plants like birch trees (genus Betula), we ask questions such as:

• Do epigenetic mechanisms like DNA methylation contribute to adaptive or maladaptive phenotypic plasticity?
• How do evolutionary processes such as selection, drift, and gene flow influence epigenetic variation?
• How do genomic structural variants shape the epigenome and its plasticity?

Affiliated with the Centre for Excellence in Tree Biology, we work closely with other groups within the University including Bioinformatics for Molecular Biology and Genomics (BMBG) and Forest Genomics (ForGen).