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Hi, I'm Patrick Rohner
I am broadly interested in the ultimate and proximate underpinnings of the stunning diversity of organismal shapes, sizes, and lifestyles. This applies in particular to the mechanisms driving rapid diversification of morphology, behavior, and life history in insects. Specifically, my research integrates quantitative and functional genetic, experimental, and comparative approaches to uncover how phenotypic plasticity arises and, once in existence, shapes subsequent evolutionary change. Born and raised in Switzerland, I studied evolutionary biology at the University of Zurich. I did my undergraduate and graduate studies in the lab of Wolf U. Blanckenhorn, where I investigated the evolutionary ecology of life history traits, sexual dimorphism, and plasticity in sepsid flies. While most of my work was based in the quantitative genetic realm, I also got fond of comparative and experimental studies. After defending my PhD in 2018, I moved to Indiana University to become a postdoctoral researcher with Armin Moczek, focussing on population differentiation, the evolution of genotype-by-environment interactions, and the developmental underpinnings of plasticity in dung beetles. |
