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Why do polyploid plants - species with multiple sets of chromosomes - become increasingly common towards the Arctic and high alpine regions? This long-standing evolutionary puzzle is still poorly understood, and this project will contribute new insight by investigating the origin of a widespread Arctic-alpine plant.
In this project, we will study the evolutionary history of Draba incana (lodnerublom / twisted whitlow grass), a hardy species found across Norway from coastal areas to high alpine environments. This species is an allopolyploid, meaning it originates from hybridisation between two different ancestral species. While one parental lineage is already known, the identity of the second remains unresolved. A central goal of this project is to identify this missing parental species and to reconstruct the hybrid origin of D. incana.
You will explore how chromosomes have evolved after hybridisation, and how this may have contributed to the ecological success and wide distribution of the species. Key questions include: how did this polyploid arise, and what makes it so successful across such a broad environmental gradient?
The project is primarily bioinformatic, involving genome assembly, comparative genomics, and evolutionary analyses. There will also be opportunities for laboratory work and field sampling of plant material in Arctic-alpine environments.
The project is embedded in a research group working on Arctic-alpine plant evolutionary genomics at the Natural History Museum (NHM), located in the Botanical Garden in Oslo. You will become part of a collaborative and welcoming research environment focusing on molecular ecology, comparative genomics and genome evolution.
You will be supervised by Siri Birkeland (NHM), Cassandra Elphinstone (NHM & University of British Columbia), César Herrero González (NHM), and one external supervisor.
For more information, please contact Siri Birkeland siri.birkeland@nhm.uio.no