Qvarnström lab

We are truly fascinated by the huge biodiversity in the world. Research in our lab is therefore focused on gaining knowledge on how biodiversity is formed through the evolutionary processes that lead to the splitting of existing species into new species.

In particular, our group is interested in how population divergence in ecological adaptations and reproductive behaviors relate to the build-up of different sources of reproductive isolation.

We also study factors (e.g. habitat heterogeneity) and evolutionary processes (character displacement) that mitigate ecological competition and reproductive interference between young species once they are formed.

Our data mainly originates from two natural study systems; (1) a hybrid zone between collared and pied flycatchers on the island of Öland in the Baltic Sea, Sweden, and (2) populations of Strawberry poison frogs in the Bocas del Toro archipelago in the Caribbean Sea, Panama.

We use a wide range of approaches including long-term population studies with individual pedigrees, field experiments and various genomic techniques.

We are available on X (Twitter) and Bluesky!