Riitta Johanna Mappes (born 13 October 1965 in Valkeakoski, Finland) is an evolutionary ecologist based in Finland. Her research focuses on interspecific interactions, such as those between predators and prey. She is known for her work on the evolution of aposematic signals and mimicry in chemically defended prey, the evolution of signal polymorphism, the evolution of bacterial virulence, and the evolution of sexual and asexual reproduction. [1] [2] Her main study species include the wood tiger moth ( Arctia plantaginis ), vipers (Viperidae), the Colorado potato beetle (Leptinotarsa decemlineata) and the drumming wolf-spider (Hygrolycosa rubrofasciata). [1] [2]
Mappes earned her MSc degree in 1991 and her PhD in 1994, both from the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. Her doctoral thesis focused on reproductive tactics and maternal care in shield bugs, particularly the parent bug (Elasmucha grisea). In 2003 The Academy of Finland awarded Mappes the 'Young Dynamic Researcher Award' for her research merits in developing the ‘novel world method’ to study the evolution of aposematism. [3]
She was elected as a Research Professor at the Academy of Finland from 2009-2013, and again from 2019-2023. [4] Mappes served as a Professor of Evolutionary Ecology at the University of Jyväskylä from 2008-2019, where she headed the Centre of Excellence in Biological Interactions for the Academy of Finland from 2012-2018. [5] [6] In 2017 she was elected member of the Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters [7] and in 2018 she became an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS). [8] In 2019 she was invited to membership in the Royal Physiographic Society of Lund. As of 2020, she is a Professor of Ecology at the University of Helsinki, Research Professor at the Academy of Finland, [4] and member of the governing board for the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters. [9]
Nils Christian Stenseth is a Norwegian biologist with a focus on ecology and evolution. He is the director of the Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis (CEES) at the University of Oslo, CEES was given Centre of Excellence status by the Research Council of Norway in December 2006. He is also the Chief Scientist at the Norwegian Institute of Marine Research in Norway, and Honorary Professor of Tsinghua University.
Hanna Kokko is a scientist and full professor at the University of Zurich. She works in the fields of evolution and ecology and is known for her research on the evolution and maintenance of sex, the feedback between ecology and evolution, and the evolutionary ecology of cancer.
Sarah Perin "Sally" Otto is a theoretical biologist, Canada Research Chair in Theoretical and Experimental Evolution, and is currently a Killam Professor at the University of British Columbia. From 2008-2016, she was the director of the Biodiversity Research Centre at the University of British Columbia. Otto was named a 2011 MacArthur Fellow. In 2015 the American Society of Naturalists gave her the Sewall Wright Award for fundamental contributions to the unification of biology. In 2021, she was awarded the Darwin-Wallace Medal for contributing major advances to the mathematical theory of evolution.
Kaisa Miettinen is a Finnish mathematician and the former vice rector of the University of Jyväskylä in Finland. She is a professor of industrial optimization with the Faculty of Information Technology, University of Jyväskylä, Finland. In addition, she heads the Multiobjective Optimization Group.
The novel world method is a technique used in animal behaviour experiments that address questions on the evolution of warning signals that chemically defended prey use to deter predators, and also on warning signal mimicry.
Marlene Zuk is an American evolutionary biologist and behavioral ecologist. She worked as professor of biology at the University of California, Riverside (UCR) until she transferred to the University of Minnesota in 2012. Her studies involve sexual selection and parasites.
Corrie S. Moreau is an evolutionary biologist and entomologist with a specialty in myrmecology, the study of ants. She is currently a professor and curator at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Moreau studies the evolution, ecology, biogeography, systematics, and diversification of insects and their microbial gut-symbionts using molecular and genomic tools. She has also been an advocate for increasing women and diversity in the sciences.
Johanna Schmitt is an evolutionary ecologist and plant geneticist. Her research is notable for its focus on the genetic basis of traits in ecologically valuable plants and on predicting how such plants will respond and adapt to environmental change such as climate warming. She has authored over 100 articles and her works have been cited over 7900 citations. She is honored with being the first female scientist at Brown University to be elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
Rosemary Gillespie is an evolutionary biologist and professor of Environmental Science, Policy & Management, Division of Insect Biology at the University of California, Berkeley. She was the President of the American Genetics Association in 2018 and was previously President of the International Biogeography Society 2013–2015. From 2011 to 2013 she had served at the president of the American Arachnological Society. As of 2020 she is the faculty director of the Essig Museum of Entomology and a Professor and Schlinger Chair in systematic entomology at the University of California, Berkeley. Gillespie is known for her work on the evolution of communities on hotspot archipelagoes.
Ruth Mace FBA is a British anthropologist, biologist, and academic. She specialises in the evolutionary ecology of human demography and life history, and phylogenetic approaches to culture and language evolution. Since 2004, she has been Professor of Evolutionary Anthropology at University College London.
Liselotte Sundström is a Finnish zoologist. She is professor emerita of evolutionary biology at the University of Helsinki.
Sharon Y. Strauss is an American evolutionary ecologist. She is a Professor of Evolution and Ecology at the University of California, Davis.
Stephanie M. Carlson is the A.S. Leopold Chair in Wildlife Biology at the University of California Berkeley. Her research considers fish ecology, freshwater ecology, and evolutionary ecology.
Anna Traveset is a Spanish ecologist, particularly known for her work on ecological interactions between plants and animals, especially on islands.
Priyanga Amarasekare is a Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and distinguished Fellow of the Ecological Society of America (ESA). Her research is in the fields of mathematical biology and trophic ecology, with a focus on understanding patterns of biodiversity, species dispersal and the impacts of climate change. She received a 2021 Guggenheim Fellowship and received ESA's Robert H. MacArthur Award in 2022.
Kayla C. King is Professor of Evolutionary Ecology at University of Oxford, specialising in how interactions between hosts and parasites show evolutionary change.
Kathleen Donohue is an American biologist at Duke University. She researches how adaptation occurs on a genetic basis and received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2013 for her work.
Eco-evolutionary dynamics refers to the reciprocal effects that ecology and evolution have on each other. The effects of ecology on evolutionary processes are commonly observed in studies, but the realization that evolutionary changes can be rapid led to the emergence of eco-evolutionary dynamics. The idea that evolutionary processes can occur quickly and on one timescale with ecological processes led scientists to begin studying the influence evolution has on ecology along with the affects ecology has on evolution. Recent studies have documented eco-evolutionary dynamics and feedback, which is the cyclic interaction between evolution and ecology, in natural and laboratory systems at different levels of biological organization, such as populations, communities, and ecosystems.
Jessica Hua is an associate professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Binghamton University, NY. In addition Hua is the Director for the Center for Integrated Watershed Studies at Binghamton University which focuses on understanding watersheds and the human influences on them through research. She is a herpetologist and oversees her own lab, The Hua Lab, where they focus on ecological interactions, evolutionary processes and ecological-evolutionary feedbacks. Hua's background has led to her appreciation of education with coming from a refugee family who "epitomizes the concept of the American Dream". Her research aims to help others gain opportunities while also establishing a lab that is inclusive and diverse. Hua also enjoys a variety of sports and plays disc golf professionally since 2016.
Judith Lee Bronstein is an American ecologist and evolutionary biologist who researches mutualisms, or positive species interactions. She has edited multiple books and volumes, including Mutualism, which was published by Oxford University Press in 2016.