Department of Biology

Aarhus University Seal
 Department of Biology Research Research areas Genetics and evolution Plant Evolution and Biodiversity Who we are

PEB group

Members of the Plant Evolution and Biodiversity group

Wolf Eiserhardt

Associate Professor
M
H 1137, 224
P +4527782857

Wolf L. Eiserhardt

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR

I am a botanist trained at the universities of Hamburg (Germany) and Aarhus (Denmark). Now I am an Associate Professor at Aarhus University, and an Honorary Research Associate at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (UK). I am broadly interested in the evolution and geographic distribution of plant diversity, and study these subjects mostly using phylogenomics and spatial statistics. I have a special interest in places with very high plant diversity, such as the Cape of South Africa, tropical rainforests, or mountains. The plant group I know most about are the palms (Arecaceae).

Google Scholar, ResearchGate, ORCID

Staff page at Aarhus University (incl. short CV)

Twitter: @w_eiserhardt

                      

Paola De Lima Ferreira

Postdoc
M
H 1137, 215

Paola De Lima Ferreira

POSTDOC

Paola works on species-level phylogenomics and diversification history of the palm family.

Staff page at Aarhus University:

                      

Hanchen Shuai

Research Fellow
M

Hanchen Shuai

RESEARCH FELLOW

Hanchen works on the ecological and evolutionary drivers of species ranges and their size in palms

Staff page at Aarhus University

                      

Oscar Balslev Wrisberg

PhD Student
M
H 1137, 223

Oscar Wrisberg

PHD STUDENT

I am a PhD student at Aarhus University, interested in the distribution of biodiversity spatially and across the tree of life. Currently, I am working on explaining the hyperdiversity of plants in tropical rainforests using two different approaches as a part of the TropiTol project. First, I am working on a species level phylogeny of Coryphoideae, a subfamily of Arecaceae, in order to uncover the evolutionary history of this ecologically important tropical rainforest model group. Secondly, I am investigating the macroecological drivers of tropical rainforest hyperdiversity on a global scale by combining massive distribution and phylogenetic datasets spanning the plant tree of life in conjunction with climate datasets in an ecoinformatic framework.

Twitter: @WrisbergOscar

                      

Peter Petoe

PhD Student
M

Peter Petoe

PHD STUDENT

Peter works on his PhD titled Discovering and monographing the palms of Malesian biodiversity hotspots

Staff page at Aarhus University.

            

Malin Camilla Håkansson

Laboratory Technician
M
H 1135, 221
P +4560202666

Camilla Håkansson

LAB TECHNICIAN

Camilla is in charge of our phylogenomics work in the lab

MSc students:

Krisitine Nørtoft Kristensen:works on the species-level phylogenomics of the endemic Malagasy palm tribe Dyspidinae

BSc students:

August H. C. Søndergaard works on the species-level phylogenomics of the endemic Malagasy palm tribe Dyspidinae

Alumni

Previous students/postdocs supervised by Wolf Eiserhardt:

Postdocs:

PhD students:

  • Lars Emil S. F. Hansen, “Evolution within a Biodiversity Hotspot: Diversification and Distribution of the Palms of Madagascar” (2024)
  • Michelangelo S. Moerland, “A phylogenomic study of Saxifraga (Saxifragaceae)” (2023)
  • Pirada Sumanon, “Taxonomy, Phylogenomics and Biogeography of Maesa (Primulaceae)” (2022)
  • Benedikt G. Kuhnhäuser, “Phylogenomics and biogeography of the calamoid palms” (2021) (main supervisor: William J Baker)

MSc students:

  • Nina Hauvgaard Degn, “The Palms of Madagascar: Species distributions and the impact of functional traits” (2024)
  • Josephine E. A. Connelly, “Soybean for the Future: Population Genetic Analysis of a Swedish Genebank Collection in Comparison to a Core Collection Pre-adapted to Cold Climate” (2023) – project at the Center for Quantitative Genetics and Genomics
  • Laura Kragh Frederiksen, ”Systematics and biogeography of the Cryptocarya group (Lauraceae)” (2023)
  • Jeppe Therkildsen Madsen, ”Climate Changes and Saxifrages - Future developments for an arctic-alpine plant group” (2020)
  • Alexander Venzel Rudbeck, "A map of phylogenetic knowledge: spatial barriers and bias in the Darwinian shortfall" (2020)
  • Emil Muff Munk, "The importance of biome definition for quantifying plant species richness and phylogenetic composition in tropical rainforests" (2020)
  • Maya Schrödl, "Colonization and diversification history of Madagascan palms with new phylogenomic evidence from the genus Orania (Arecaceae)" (2020)
  • Matthew Jeffery, "From Lush Lowlands to the Roof of the World: Leaf Economics and Habitat Evolution in Saxifrages (Genus Saxifraga L.)" (2017)
  • Michael Kröncke, "The effects of flowering phenology of Empetrum hermaphroditum on gene flow between subpopulations along snow cover gradients)" (2014)

BSc students:

  • Trine Darchy Bodilsen, “Assigning palm species to biomes” (2024)
  • Kristine Nørtoft Kristensen, “The effect of multi-copy genes on a phylogeny of Ceroxyloideae” (2023)
  • Sarah Valentin, “Recovery of plastid DNA to investigate the backbone phylogeny of subtribe Dypsidinae” (2022)
  • Josephine Connelly, "Phylogenetic analysis of Ravenea (tribe Ceroxyleae): A phylogenomic approach to species level tree estimation using target capture" (2019)
  • Alexander Venzel Rudbeck, "Phylogenetic analysis of Vaccinieae with a particular focus on the polyphyletic genus Vaccinium" (2018)
Revised 25.09.2024
-
Anne Kirstine Mehlsen