Biology Education

Environmental conditions in cities differ in many regards from nearby natural areas, providing many challenges for the animals living there. As a result, urban animals differ in many characteristics from those living in more natural habitats, including physiological traits like nutritional conditions and hormone levels, and behavioral traits like problem-solving abilities. In the below projects, we investigate potential relationships between these traits in great tits (Parus major) breeding in Malmö (urban habitat) and Skrylle nature reserve (rural habitat). We are looking for students interested in field work with birds, behavioral experiments, and/or laboratory work!

Master project 1: Comparing IGF-1 level between urban and rural great tits

Insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) is a hormone that plays an important regulatory role in body condition, growth, and brain development. The level of this hormone is sensitive to environmental factors and thus likely to be affected by urbanization. The aim of this project is to compare the IGF-1 levels of adult great tits and/or their nestlings between urban and rural habitats.

Your responsibilities:

• monitoring the breeding of great tits as part of a field team
• ringing, measuring, and collecting blood samples from breeding adults and nestlings
• measurement of IGF-1 from blood plasma using ELISA
• statistical analysis of the data

Master project 2: Effects of IGF-1 level on problem-solving success

Insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) is a hormone that, among other effects, affects brain development and cognitive function. In this project, we will test whether the IGF-1 level of great tits affects their innovativeness and learning ability in an obstacle removal problem.

Your responsibilities:

• monitoring the breeding of great tits as part of a field team
• performing behavioral experiments on breeding adults
• ringing, measuring, and collecting blood samples
• measurement of IGF-1 from blood plasma using ELISA
• statistical analysis of the data

Master project 3: Effects of nutritional condition on problem-solving success

Nutritional condition can affect cognitive abilities in different ways: on the one hand, poor nutritional condition can hinder cognitive function, on the other hand, hungry animals may be more motivated. In this project, we will test whether nutritional condition, quantified by fatty acid composition and protein levels affects the performance of great tits in an obstacle removal problem.

Your responsibilities:

• monitoring the breeding of great tits as part of a field team
• performing behavioral experiments on breeding adults
• ringing, measuring, and collecting blood samples
• measuring fatty acid composition and/or protein concentration from blood plasma
• statistical analysis of the data

Short project or Bachelor project: Differences in problem-solving success between urban and rural great tits

Due to the novelty and complexity of cities, urban animals often benefit from having good cognitive abilities. In this study we will compare the innovativeness and learning ability of great tits in an obstacle removal problem between an urban and a rural population.

Your responsibilities:

• monitoring the breeding of great tits as part of a field team
• performing behavioral experiments on breeding adults
• statistical analysis of the data

Required knowledge: Master students who participate in blood sampling must take the Animal Testing Ethics course before the start of the project. Previous experience with handling birds, blood sampling, laboratory techniques, and statistical analysis are advantages, but all of these skills can be learned during the project.

Start date:  April 2026 (for all projects)

Contact info: Ernő Vincze, erno.vincze@biol.lu.se

LU research profile: https://portal.research.lu.se/en/persons/ern%C3%B6-vincze/

Imagine hiking in the trailless wilderness of northern Sweden. You leave your tent to admire the scenery. After passing the first mossy hill you already lose sight of the tent. Most humans would be utterly lost within an hour of undirected travel. Yet, some animals, like bees and ants, can easily return to their nests in a straight line, even after navigating unknown, featureless terrain. How are these impressive behaviors neurally manifested in the tiny brains of insects?
The advertised Master’s projects will use behavioral experimentation and targeted neurotoxin ablations of specific brain regions to understand how bumblebees construct representations of space in their brains with which to navigate. Purely behavioral projects are also an option.

Required knowledge:
Background in neurobiology, sensory biology, and animal behavior are welcome but not required.
The project will require:

• handling live bumblebees for experimentation
• fine motor skills for microsurgeries on bumblebees -some wet lab skills (using pipettes)

In addition, students with a programming background are encouraged to apply if they are interested in helping to develop analysis scripts for behavioral experimental setups that they can use for their project.

Length of the project:
10 month theses for 60 credits are prioritized, but shorter theses may be organized as well, depending on the project.

Start date: Can be flexible, depending on length and goals of project. Spring 2026, Fall 2026, January 2027

Contact info: Rickesh Patel (rickesh.patel@biol.lu.se)
Please include a brief statement (a few sentences) about your background, interests, and motivation behind why you would like to be part of the project.

Thank you!

Are you interested in mammals? Do you want to study evolution? We are looking for a Master student to work with an exciting project on bats using image analysis, morphometrics, evolutionary genetics, and advanced statistical tools.

Phyllostomidae (New World leaf-nosed bats) represents one of the largest and most ecologically diverse mammalian families, having evolved in the New World over the last 30 million years. These bats have been highly successful in exploiting a wide range of ecological resources, and their pronounced morphological diversity provides an exceptional opportunity to understand how evolutionary processes shape the evolutionary potential of ecologically important traits. While cranial evolution in this group has been extensively studied, much less is known about how evolutionary processes shape the diversification of the mandible, a structure that plays a central role in feeding performance.

Evolutionary quantitative genetics predicts that phenotypic covariance among traits can bias both the direction, pace, and amount of evolutionary change. In particular, evolutionary divergence is expected to occur preferentially along directions of greatest phenotypic variation, often referred to as lines of least evolutionary resistance (LLR). When morphological divergence is aligned with these directions, evolution may proceed more rapidly, whereas divergence away from the LLR may be more constrained. Understanding whether and how mandible evolution follows these predictions remains a key open question.

The New World leaf-nosed bats provide an ideal system to address this problem. Their repeated dietary transitions including insectivory, frugivory, nectarivory, omnivory, and sanguivory are associated with substantial variation in mandible form and function. The available dataset of two-dimensional mandible images, representing all subfamilies and feeding strategies of phyllostomids, allows explicit testing of whether patterns of phenotypic covariation influence both the direction and the tempo of mandible evolution across a macroevolutionary radiation.

In this Master’s project, we will use comparative quantitative genetic approaches and phylogenetic comparative methods to investigate how phenotypic covariance shapes the evolutionary trajectory of mandible morphology in phyllostomid bats. Using existing mandible imaging datasets and a phylogenetic framework, the project will reconstruct evolutionary divergence along branches of the phylogeny and quantify both the orientation and magnitude of morphological change.

Specifically, the project will test whether (i) mandible evolution occurs preferentially along the major axis of phenotypic variation, (ii) evolutionary divergence aligned with this axis is associated with greater amounts and faster rates of morphological change. Together, these analyses will evaluate the role of phenotypic covariance in shaping the long-term evolutionary dynamics of a functionally important structure in a remarkably diverse clade.

This project will include:

• digitization of two-dimensional mandible data across phyllostomid species,
• estimation of phenotypic covariance structure and major axes of variation,
• reconstruction of evolutionary divergence vectors and rates using phylogenetic comparative methods in R, and
• interpretation of results in the context of evolutionary quantitative genetics.

Through this project, the student will gain experience in multivariate statistics, phylogenetic comparative methods, and evolutionary quantitative genetics, while contributing to a broader understanding of how phenotypic variation shapes evolutionary trajectories across macroevolutionary timescales.

Length of the project: 60 credits master’s thesis

Start day: Flexible but preferably Autumn

If interested, please contact Daniela M. Rossoni (daniela.rossoni@biol.lu.se, main supervisor) and Masahito Tsuboi (masahito.tsuboi@biol.lu.se) for further details of the project.

There are two subspecies of willow warblers Phylloscopus trochilus breeding in Sweden. In autumn, the southern subspecies P. t. trochilus migrates over the Iberian Peninsula to western Africa whereas the northern subspecies P. t. acredula migrates over the Balkans to eastern and southern Africa. The project aims to describe the differential passage of the two subspecies as they pass the island Öland in the Baltic. Although they cannot be separated by plumage or size they can be identified by genetic analyses of three regions in the genome.

Fieldwork. Daily catching of willow warblers (mist-nets) in a forest close to Gammalsby, Öland, between 15 August and 7 September. Ringing, measurements and collection of blood samples. Expected number of samples around 150.

Labwork. DNA extraction and genotyping (SNP-qPCR) in order to identify the subspecies (4-6 weeks).

Prediction. The dates of passage will be earlier for the subspecies trochilus than for the subspecies acredula.

Further reading: Sokolovskis et al 2023 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-35788-7

Required knowledge

Experience with handling songbirds. Before the start of the project, you will need to take the course in laboratory animal science for birds.  Experience with molecular labwork preferred, but can be learnt within the project.

Masters project. Length can be adjusted to 30, 45 or 60 credits depending on preferences.

Start date

1 August 2026

Contact info

Staffan Bensch, staffan.bensch@biol.lu.se

https://portal.research.lu.se/en/persons/staffan-bensch

Did you ever wonder why there are so many variation in flowers and their colors?

Flower color is one of the most striking traits to attract pollinators and it can vary between species and populations. Pollinators may have preferences for certain flower colors, but at the same time, environmental factors like soil nutrients, pH, water availability, and tissue structure can influence color.

In Digitalis purpurea we find different colors from white, pink and dark violet. However we recently found that flower variation in Digitalis is not affected by pollinators or abiotic factors like soil nutrients, pH or water content. We found that the nectary guides are almost always pigmented and complete albino plants are very rare.

It is still not known how different color morphs interbreed or if certain crosses are favored providing an advantage and how the genetic basis is regulated between petal and nectary guides tissues.

In this project you can work in the field with native populations from Sweden making crossings between different color morphs, or work in the lab to understand the genetic basis of different gene expression for anthocyanin pigmentation, or do both!

This project is suitable for both bachelor and master level.

Time of work (field and lab) between June-August.

Contact: Sissi Lozada Gobilard sissi.lozada_gobilard@biol.lu.se

We are looking for a Master student interested in evolutionary ecology, quantitative genetics, macroevolution and biodiversity to join Tsuboi’s lab studying wing morphology of damselflies and dragonflies. You will be part of our team studying natural populations of damselflies around Lund leading by the PI, while collecting your own data for Master thesis!

Background: Why do organisms often remain similar over millions of years despite abundant genetic variation and ongoing natural selection? This long-standing evolutionary puzzle is known as the paradox of stasis. Damselflies are ideal for studying this problem because they have standing variation in wing morphology, occupy diverse habitats, and represent well-documented natural history that enables quantification of natural and sexual selection in natural populations. Our lab combines field ecology, AI-aided data acquisition from images, quantitative genetics and phylogenetic comparative method to understand why evolutionary change is often bounded within limited ranges.

Recent work from our group suggests that natural and sexual selection fluctuate in ways that are ecologically predictable, producing similar adaptive outcomes across two divergent species (Gupta et al. 2025, Journal of Evolutionary Biology 38:728-742, https://doi.org/10.1093/jeb/voaf040). This may explain why wing morphology evolves along narrow axes despite available genetic variation.

Objective: To test that the pattern of selection is determined by the same mating-system parameters in three species of pond damselflies: Enallagma cyathigerum, Ischnura elegans, and Coenagrion pulchellum.

Your role: You will measure selection and mating-system structure in wild damselfly populations around Lund by:
– conducting standardized field surveys (community composition, sex ratio, morph frequencies)
– performing fecundity assays as a fitness measure in the laboratory
– acquiring wing images with an AI-assisted pipeline
– quantify phenotypic selection using quantitative-genetic framework

What you will learn:
– field sampling and ecological census methods
– imaging and high-throughput phenotyping tools
– evolutionary quantitative genetics (selection gradients, multivariate models)
– scientific data management and statistical analysis in R

Required knowledge: Basic skills in field work and interest in natural history. The candidate will receive an extensive training on the system. A successful candidate will have an interest in phenotypic evolution. The project is intended for 60 credits master’s thesis.

Starting date: flexible, but the prospective student needs to participate field work in June and July/2026

This project contributes directly to understanding the predictability of evolution and has implications for predicting evolution and biodiversity conservation under global change.

Contact info: Masahito Tsuboi (masahito.tsuboi@biol.lu.se)

Project information: Bark beetles are typically found in close association with a diverse community of fungal symbionts, yet it is unclear why these insects depend on these microbes for tree colonization and reproduction. The Eurasian spruce bark beetle (Ips typogrpahus) is a devastating pest for conifers (mainly Norway spruce, Picea abies) in Europe. These beetles can attack and kill healthy conifers in a few days (hence known as “aggressive” bark beetles). Other aggressive bark beetles colonizing conifers on different continents have established a stable association with fungal symbionts irrespective of geographical range. However, the Eusian spruce bark beetles have flexible associations with fungal partners, and their fungal communities vary across populations.

Objectives: This project aims to test 1) whether bark beetles can reproduce without fungi, 2) if not, which services fungi provide to bark beetles, with a focus on nutrition supplementation, and 3) whether adult beetles show any behavioural response to individual fungi in the community, which suggests that bark beetles may actively select among fungal partners.

Your role: The prospective student will:

• Manipulate fungal symbionts of beetles using exclusion and reinoculation experiments,
• Measure beetle fitness (developmental time, survival and reproductive output) and
• Analyze the nutritional profile of the fungus (sterols, B vitamins and amino acids; in collaboration with analytical service platforms)
• Perform olfactory-based choice experiments using bark beetles and fungi.

This project offers an opportunity to work on an unsolved fundamental question in bark beetle biology—why bark beetles need microbes to survive and reproduce in conifers

Required knowledge: Basic laboratory skills. Interested candidates will receive proper training on the system during the thesis. Prospective students are expected to have a general interest in insect-microbe interactions. The project is intended for master’s students (either 45 or 60 credits). The direction of the thesis and the project goals can be adjusted based on the student’s interests.

 Start date: Any time from March 2026

 Contact info: Dineshkumar Kandasamy, Researcher (main supervisor), email:dineshkumar.kandasamy@biol.lu.se.

https://portal.research.lu.se/sv/persons/dineshkumar-kandasamy/

Migratory birds use daylength, or photoperiod, to align their migration schedules to the annual cycle, and geomagnetic information for compass orientation and positioning. How the migration phenotype in birds is controlled by geophysical information, i.e. daylength and geomagnetic information, is still poorly understood. We aim to test the hypothesis that long-distance migrants can adjust their schedule of migratory fueling to a novel geomagnetic environment by bringing juvenile songbirds into captivity, and we are looking for a dedicated master’s student to conduct the experiment. We will capture long-distance migratory songbirds in southern Sweden and will use purpose built behavioural labs (OriLAB) to simulate geomagnetic field experienced during their typical migration. Fieldwork starts: 1 August 2025. You will work in a team of scientists (including a PhD student) but will pursue your own project as a Master’s thesis.

If understanding how the endogenous migration program of songbirds’ functions and is controlled by geophysical information excites you and you like to work with animals, then this may be your master’s project. Please, contact Professor Susanne Åkesson for more information.

Professor Susanne Åkesson, Department of Biology

susanne.akesson@biol.lu.se

Ready to lead your own ecological research project in the field? We are looking for Master students interested in evolutionary ecology, sensory ecology, and climate change to join the Qvarnström Lab, studying wild birds. You will be part of our team monitoring natural populations of flycatchers and their hybrids while also collecting data for your own thesis!

Master’s Project 1: Using Olfactory Cues to Find Food

Background: The ability of birds to regulate insect populations is debated but can be a powerful ecosystem service. Many mechanisms behind the foraging efficiency of birds are still being discovered. While it has been shown that excluding birds from crop fields can lead to increased insect damage (e.g., Garcia et al., 2018), their regulation role in natural settings remains unknown as well as the mechanisms by which birds locate the best feeding spots.
Ground-breaking research, including our own, suggests that olfaction may play a crucial role. We have found that genetic variation in olfaction-related genes in collared flycatchers is linked to the amount of caterpillar larvae on their breeding territories. Does this mean that flycatchers actually use olfaction cues to locate trees that are heavily infested with their prey? If true, this means that we have severely underestimated the birds’ capacity to detect and respond to local pest outbreaks.
Objective: To directly test the hypothesis that pied and collared flycatchers use insect herbivore induced emission of biogenetic volatile organic compounds (IH-BVOCs) to identify trees with more caterpillars.
Your Role: You will measure IH-BVOC emissions from sampled tree branches and correlate these with direct bird activity. This will involve:
– Field Observation & Monitoring: Conducting systematic observations and setting up remote video cameras to monitor bird visitation rates to individual trees.
– Chemical Sampling: Collecting branch samples for subsequent chemical analysis of IH-BVOCs.
– Data Analysis: Statistically linking the chemical profiles of trees with recorded bird foraging activity.
– Fieldwork & Data Collection: Participating in long-term data collection by monitoring nest boxes.
This project offers a unique opportunity to contribute to a cutting-edge field and help answer a fundamental question with implications for both basic and applied ecology.

Master’s Project 2: Climate Change, Mismatch, and Survival
Background: Climate change is disrupting the tritrophic terrestrial tree-caterpillar-bird food chain. In our study system, warmer springs cause trees to bud and caterpillars to hatch earlier. However, migratory birds like our study species, the pied and collared flycatchers, have not advanced their breeding schedules as much. This creates a “phenological mismatch”: when the nestlings hatch, the peak abundance of caterpillars they need for food may have already passed.
This mismatch is most severe in warm springs and acts as a powerful agent of natural selection. But there can only be an evolutionary response to selection if there is genetic variation in the traits subject to selection. Why do some nestlings survive these poor conditions while others do not? We hypothesize that an individual’s innate metabolic rate is a key trait that determines their resilience.
Objective: To determine if an individual’s metabolic rate is a key trait determining its resilience to climate-driven trophic mismatches.
Your Role: You will investigate how a nestling’s innate physiology influences its ability to survive this mismatch.
Data Analysis & Modelling:
– Analysing high-resolution metabolic rate measurements from nestlings.
– Working with our long-term demographic dataset (survival, breeding dates, etc.) spanning multiple years.
– Quantifying the annual degree of phenological mismatch between birds and caterpillars.
– Using statistical modelling to determine if offspring with certain metabolic traits have a survival advantage.

Fieldwork & Data Collection: Participating in long-term data collection by monitoring nest boxes.

This project offers a rare opportunity to work at the intersection of physiology, climate change, and evolution, using a powerful dataset to answer a pressing ecological question.

Master’s Project 3: Cognition and regulation of insect populations
Background: Tritrophic interactions, such as the tree-caterpillar-bird food chain, play an important role in the ecosystems. For example, insectivorous birds, such as flycatchers, may have a role in controlling caterpillar populations, reducing the insect damage on trees. Climate change is however disrupting these tritrophic interactions, as warmer springs cause trees to bud and caterpillars to hatch earlier, and birds may not be able to adapt to the earlier emergence of caterpillar larvae quickly enough to avoid population decline. Cognition, and more specifically learning, should provide the right mechanisms for the behavioural adaptation needed in changing environments to cope with variation and uncertainty (Ghosh et al. 2023). To fully understand the general ability of birds to act as active biological control agents it is thus important to consider the cognitive processes underlying behaviours.
Objective: To understand whether individual variation in learning, cognition, and behavioral plasticity in flycatchers have an advantage in foraging and detecting trees with more caterpillar.
Your Role: You will experimentally test how variation in cognitive abilities influence the birds’ ability to identify trees with heavy caterpillar infestations. This will involve:
– Field Observation & Monitoring: Conducting systematic observations and setting up remote video cameras to monitor bird visitation rates to individual trees.
– Behavioural assays: Conduct commonly recognized and used cognition assays to individuals near nestboxes and in aviaries.
– Chemical Sampling: Collecting branch samples for subsequent chemical analysis of IH-BVOCs.
– Data Collection and Analysis: Quantify behaviours from assays recordings and link individual behavioural performance with individuals foraging in trees infested with more caterpillars.
– Fieldwork & Data Collection: Participating in long-term data collection by monitoring nest boxes.

If you are interested in either project, we strongly encourage you to contact us!
Start date is flexible!

Contact persons:
Michaëla Berdougo (PhD student) – michaela.berdougo@ebc.uu.se
Ana Gomes (PostDoc) – ana.gomes@ebc.uu.se
Professor Anna Qvarnström – anna.qvarnstrom@ebc.uu.se

European Spallation Source (ESS) omges av stora grönytor som anlades för att gynna och öka den biologiska mångfalden runt anläggningen. Redan vid planeringen fördes diskussioner med Lunds kommunekolog för att säkerställa att området blir en del i det gröna stråket genom Brunnshög mot Kungsmarkens naturreservat. Skötselrutiner är utformade för att fortsätta gynna den typ av vegetation som är naturlig i närområdet och ge en fortsatt god utveckling av den biologiska mångfalden. Anläggningsarbetet färdigställdes 2021 och det har nu gått några år. Man vill därför utvärdera hur situationen ser ut nu, fem år efter anläggandet. Har det blivit som det var tänkt?

Syfte:

• Lägga upp en plan för att inventera växtligheten inom anläggningen, samt genomföra och rapportera inventeringen.
• Att ge eventuella förslag på åtgärder för att ytterligare öka det ekologiska värdet inom grönytorna.

Omfattning: Huvuddelen av examensarbetet kan ske sommaren 2026 och anpassas för att fungera för såväl kandidat- som masternivå. Arbetet kräver att du är villig att vara ute i fält och att du har erfarenhet av att artbestämma vilda växter.

Först till kvarn gäller.

Kontakt:

Helena Carnerup (kontaktperson ESS), helena.carnerup@ess.eu, 072-179 26 88

Stefan Andersson, stefan.andersson@biol.lu.se (kontaktperson LU), 0760-200568

Mer information

Om ESS

European Spallation Source (ESS) är en tvärvetenskaplig forskningsanläggning under uppbyggnad i Lund, med ett datahanterings- och programvarucenter beläget utanför Köpenhamn.

Efter färdigställandet 2028 kommer ESS att vara en av världens mest kraftfulla acceleratorbaserade neutronkällor för att studera olika materials struktur och beteende på atomnivå. Forskningsanläggningen kommer att spela en avgörande roll för att säkerställa den långsiktiga konkurrenskraften för europeisk forskning och industri. Forskare från både akademi och industri över hela världen kommer att använda ESS-anläggningen för att lära sig mer om material och biologiska system, göra nya upptäckter och driva innovativa lösningar för att hantera globala utmaningar inom till exempel energi, sjukvård och hållbarhet.

ESS finansieras av 13 europeiska medlemsländer: Tjeckien, Danmark, Estland, Frankrike, Tyskland, Ungern, Italien, Norge, Polen, Spanien, Sverige, Schweiz och Storbritannien.

Landskap för biologisk mångfald

Hållbarhet är ett av våra kärnvärden och grundläggande för ESS, både vad gäller den forskning som kommer att utföras vid anläggningen och själva byggandet och driften av anläggningen.

Hela byggprocessen, inklusive anläggande av grönytor, har haft ett hållbarhetsfokus för att minimera miljöpåverkan och möjliggöra avveckling och restaurering av området när platsen har nått sin livslängd. Under den tid som ESS lånar jordbruksmarken för forskningsändamål förändras fastighetens ekosystemtjänster från livsmedelsförsörjning till ekosystemstöd. Den produktiva monokulturen byts ut mot ökad biologisk mångfald.

En ekologisk inventering genomfördes på området innan beslut fattades om hur landskapsområdena skulle utformas. Inventeringen visade att området före byggandet dominerades av monokulturella jordbruksområden. Generellt sett fanns det inga habitat eller ekologiska system som inte skulle vara möjliga att restaurera, och inga områden hade höga ekologiska värden.

För att förbättra områdets ekologiska värde har topografin förändrats till en mer varierande terräng och växter har valts för att passa in i närområdet. Terrängen, dammarna och vegetationen skapar en variation av livsmiljöer med olika mikroklimat, gömställen, möjligheter att hitta vatten och föda, gröna korridorer och boplatser. Blommande och fruktbärande arter har valts för att gynna pollinerande insekter, bin och fåglar, medan grunda dammar förbättrar levnadsförhållandena för groddjur.

Resurser från ESS

• Kontaktperson: Helena Carnerup, helena.carnerup@ess.eu, 072-179 26 88
• Skriftlig information om hur anläggningens grönytor har planerats och anlagts
• Startmöte på ESS:
  • Presentation av anläggningen och verksamheten
  • Historik – hur vi kommit dit vi är nu
  • Praktiska detaljer inför arbetet
  • Rundvandring
• Planeringsmöten tillsammans med Helena och ansvarig för skötsel av grönytorna
• Access till anläggningen, cyklar för att ta sig fram inom området mm

Mer information om EES finns här: https://ess.eu/,   https://ess.eu/sites/default/files/files/document/2025-06/ESS_AR_2024.pdf,   https://ess.eu/building-project/site-architecture-energy