Dr. Eva Wolf

I’m interested in the evolutionary dynamics that have shaped and still act on biodiversity in our rapidly changing world. In my PhD project I’m focusing on the evolutionary history of Cochlearia (Brassicaceae), a cold-adapted plant genus that presumably once originated in Mediterranean areas, but was strongly affected by several Pleistocene glacial periods that might have driven the parallel adaptation to various cold characterized habitats, such as the circum-Arctic regions and Central European high alpine regions, where different taxa can be found today.

Based on Next-Generation Sequencing data and insights from different cytogenetic methods, I am working on phylogenomics and genome evolution of the genus and, together with Lúa López, I’m trying to investigate the impact of past natural selection events and the mechanisms of ecological speciation.

Nora Hohmann, Eva Wolf, Martin Lysak, Marcus A. Koch (2015) A Time-Calibrated Road Map of Brassicaceae Species Radiation and Evolutionary History. The Plant Cell doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1105/tpc.15.00482.