Projects

HARECY

In the Research Council of Finland–funded HARECY consortium project, we investigate the evolution of life-history strategies and how the costs associated with metabolic adaptations are reflected in cell-cycle regulation and, ultimately, in ageing, reproduction, and cancer susceptibility. The project is carried out in collaboration with the mitochondrial metabolism research group at Tampere University, and uses hares as a model system, as their contrasting life-history strategies and physiological differences provide a particularly powerful comparative framework.

HARECY is a natural continuation of the earlier CROSSHARES consortium project, in which we explored the intracellular – and especially mitochondrial – mechanisms maintaining species boundaries in hares. In HARECY, the focus is broadened from interspecific comparisons towards the evolutionary basis of life-history strategies and the cellular trade-offs in resource allocation between reproduction, cellular maintenance, and genome stability.

Our research combines a wide range of genomic, cellular, and molecular biology approaches, including single-cell transcriptomics, reporter gene constructs that track cell-cycle progression, and experimental cell models derived from different hare species. By integrating comparative genomics with experimental cell biology, the project provides new insights into how mitochondrial function, cell-cycle regulation, and life-history strategies have become interconnected over the course of evolution.

Population genetics

We are also interested in the population genetics of Finnish mammals, their mechanisms of adaptation to northern environments, and their demographic and dispersal histories.

As an example, our group has investigated the genomic consequences of hybridisation between the brown hare and the mountain hare, identified genomic regions under selection, and explored the origin and genetic composition of Finnish brown hares using a geographically representative sample of approximately 200 mountain hares and 200 brown hares. Comparative genomic data were collected from four brown hare populations (Germany, Austria, the Pyrenees, and Hungary) and five mountain hare populations (Sweden, the Ural Mountains, Kolyma, Magadan, and Primorsky Krai in the Russian Far East). This work constitutes one of the case studies within the Biodiversity Genomics Europe project.

The reference genomes for the brown hare and the mountain hare that we previously generated as part of the ERGA pilot project are central to these analyses, as they enable reliable SNP calling, the detection of linked variants, and the precise localisation of genes under selection. The results have already revealed patterns of interspecific hybridisation, genomic ancestry, and indications of population substructure in both species. Ongoing work further examines sex-linked biases in interspecific gene flow, which may point to male-related incompatibilities in hybrids, and aims to identify genes potentially targeted by natural selection.

Reference genome projects

Independently and in collaboration with other research groups, we generate high-quality, chromosome-level reference genomes for research use. Read more here.

DNA tools for species delimitation and biodiversity inventories

We actively participate in Finnish DNA barcoding initiatives and are involved in developing DNA-based tools for species identification and biodiversity inventories.