People

Researchers and supporting personnel of Laine Lab
Anna-Liisa Laine

I study how biodiversity and species interactions shape the functioning and stability of ecosystems under global change. I’m particularly interested in how the ecology and evolution of disease dynamics are altered under human-imposed global change. To address these questions, I combine long-term field data, experimental approaches, molecular tools, and modelling to understand how communities shift across space and time, and how interaction networks and functional traits mediate these dynamics, revealing the mechanisms that link biodiversity to ecosystem functioning.

  • Coevolution
  • Community ecology
  • Disease ecology
  • Eco-evolutionary dynamics
  • Biodiversity – Ecosystem Functioning
     
Krista Raveala

My job is to support our researchers with variable practical and administrative matters. Organising field work, recruiting summer assistants, managing data and updating webpages are examples of my responsibilities. I love going to field myself, but also enjoy spending time with excel and SQL.

Tinja Hyvönen

I work as a research technician mainly on the ERC-funded project “Coevolutionary Consequences of Biodiversity Change”. My work is very versatile and includes tasks in the greenhouse, laboratory and on the field. I also take care of chemical and equipment orders.

Andréa Davrinche

I am interested the ways diversity affect the functioning of ecosystems, in particular from the perspective of species interaction. To investigate this, I use functional traits to better understand how communities change through time and space, and cope with environmental pressure. While primarily fascinated by plants, I also explore responses of different taxa.

  • Functional ecology
  • Community ecology
  • Biodiversity - Ecosystem Functioning
     
Jean-Baptiste Floc'h

I am a microbial ecologist with a keen interest in agriculture, plant-microbe interactions and forestry. I study microbial interactions within the plant microbiome and the structure of their communities under anthropic and environmental disturbances to understand their influence in our environments and benefits for ecosystems. To do so I rely on bioinformatics, co-occurrence networks and multivariate statistics.

  • Fungi
  • Bacteria
  • Plant microbiome
  • Bioinformatics
     
Michael Giolai

I study how genetic diversity in plant immune genes influences the ability of plants to cope with ecological and environmental stress. My research focuses on how immune gene variation arises, is maintained and functions across metapopulations. I combine field-based data with molecular genetic and genomic approaches and population-level analyses to explain how immune genetic diversity contributes to adaptation, resilience and the long-term persistence of natural populations.

Maija Jokinen
  • Molecular biology
  • Viruses
Bastien Parisy

I am a community ecologist, with a particular interest in understanding how the assemblages of interactions between plants and their associated organisms are changing with Climatic changes. My current research focuses on characterizing the temporal dynamics of plants and their root-associated microbes community composition and evaluating how shifts in interactions may influence ecosystem functions.

  • Community ecology
  • Species interactions
  • Arctic-alpine ecosystems
     
Michael Rechsteiner

I am an evolutionary ecologist studying how environmental variation influences host–microbe coevolution. At REC, I investigate the links between plant community diversity and disease under environmental change.

  • Host-Pathogen interactions
  • Coevolution
  • Evolutionary genomics
  • Community ecology
Tuuli Rissanen

My research interests focus on understanding how environmental drivers shape patterns in species distributions, community composition and diversity at different scales. Tundra and boreal plants are especially close to my heart, but I'm also interested in combining information across taxa and different ecosystems.

  • Species-environment relationships
  • Spatial and temporal patterns
  • Biogeography
  • Biodiversity
Sonja Saine

I am a community ecologist interested in how various ecological processes jointly shape the patterns of biodiversity. In my postdoctoral research, I aim to understand how human-induced disturbances alter plant-microbe interactions.

  • Community ecology
  • Biodiversity
  • Species interactions
  • Environmental change
Joris Wiethase

I am a quantitative ecologist, focussed on identifying drivers and patterns of environmental change, and their consequent effects on species communities and ecosystem processes. In my postdoctoral research, I investigate how functional and taxonomic diversity are linked to ecosystem functioning in Finnish forests, using a joint species distribution modelling approach.

  • Community ecology
  • Remote sensing & distribution modelling
  • Biodiversity – Ecosystem Functioning
Sara Leino

I am a doctoral researcher studying how human-induced disturbance shapes disease dynamics in natural plant communities. My PhD work investigates how species interactions, biodiversity, and environmental changes influence disease risk, both directly and indirectly through shifts in plant community composition and the plant microbiome.

  • Host–pathogen interactions
  • Plant microbiome
  • Community ecology
  • Biodiversity
     
Veera Nieminen

My research focuses on understanding how changes in population size influence host–pathogen interactions and host microbial communities.

Jasmi Näsäkkälä

I am interested in the drivers of rhizosphere microbial communities, especially drought and population history.  I investigate the sensitivity of above ground and below ground microbes to environmental factors.  Using data collected from Åland, my thesis will focus on these and I try to explain how demography meets soil biology.  

  • Biodiversity
  • Rhizosphere microbiome
  • Climate change
  • Population history
     
Alumni

Anita Bollmann-Giolai, Angela Sims, Anna Karellos, Anna Norberg, Ayco Tack, Benoit Barres, Charlotte Tollenaere, Elina Numminen, Elise Vaumourin, Erik van Bergen, Fletcher Halliday, Hanna Susi, Hannu Mäkinen, Ilona Peltoniemi, Janina Österman-Udd, Jenalle Eck, Kristina Karlsson Green, Laura Häkkinen, Layla Höckerstedt, Lucie Poulin, Luiz Domeignoz-Horta, Matthias Fürler, Mikko Tiusanen, Marijke Iso-Kokkila, Paula Thitz, Pauliina Hyttinen, Pezhman Baran, Rachel Penczykowski, Riikka Alanen, Sara Fraixedas, Seraina Cappelli, Steven Parratt, Suvi Sallinen, Tommi Mononen, Torsti Schulz, Tis Voortman, Viviana Loaiza