[The Svedberg seminar] – The origins of locally adaptive loci
December 8, 2025 @ 15:15 – 16:15 CET
Gabriela Montejo-Kovacevich
Assistant Professor SciLifeLab Fellow Uppsala University
Bio
Gabriela Montejo-Kovacevich is a SciLifeLab fellow and Assistant Professor that recently established her lab at the Animal Ecology program in the Department of Ecology and Genetics at EBC (Uppsala University). Her group studies mechanisms that promote or constrain local adaptation. By integrating genomics with ecological and natural history approaches, mainly in insects, they explore the mode and tempo of evolution in natural populations.
The origins of locally adaptive loci
How do organisms evolve to inhabit diverse environments? This seminar explores the mode and tempo of evolution in the wild by studying local adaptation in three insect systems. I will first present work on Heliconius butterflies along a 1500m altitudinal gradient in the Andes, revealing strong, repeated selection at high-altitude, with evidence for adaptive introgression from pre-adapted species. I will then turn to a ‘megapest’ moth (Helicoverpa) that is threatening food security in Brazil through bidirectional adaptive introgression conferring insecticide resistance. Finally, I will introduce Euphydryas editha, a Californian butterfly capable of rapid, heritable shifts in host plant use offering a rare glimpse into ongoing behavioural adaptation to anthropogenic change. Together, these systems demonstrate how evolutionary forces interact to shape resilience in a rapidly changing world.
Host: Göran Arnqvist Goran.Arnqvist@ebc.uu.se, UU
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