Marjo Saastamoinen

Species in the wild are constantly faced with environmental variation, for example, in resource availability. The ability to cope with, react or even adapt to such environmental stress is therefore essential. We are using the Glanville fritillary butterfly (Melitaea cinxia) as a study system to investigate how genetic variation underpinning individual differences in key life-history traits are influenced by environmental conditions during development, life history trade-offs and ecological factors that vary among populations. This system offers a unique opportunity to study these questions, as long term data on the population dynamics and ecologically relevant information are available for more than 500 local-populations of the butterfly, key life-history traits can be assesses for large number of individuals, and the molecular tools are now available for this species to apply genomic research to ecologically relevant traits.

Our project on the ecological immunology in the Glanville fritillary butterfly was initiated in 2013. The projects aims to understand whether developmental conditions can work as predictive cues guiding individual's later life immune responses in an adaptive way, whether such responses can last across generations, and what is the influence of high immune defence investment on other key life-history traits under semi-natural conditions. We are using molecular and genomic tools to assess the role of genetic and epigenetic variation in shaping immune defence as a response to developmental stress.

Link to webpage: http://www.mv.helsinki.fi/home/msaastam/