Welcome to my website!
I am an evolutionary biologist with a background in ecology. Through my research, I aim to better understand the tremendous, but often overlooked, diversity of protists. Most of my research focuses on diatoms, which I use as a general model for protist diversification. I am applying a variety of approaches to answer questions regarding diatom diversity and evolution. In doing so, I work on different biological levels: from communities to species, and from populations to individual genotypes. Biogeography is one of my major research lines. I am intrigued by unravelling the patterns and drivers of geographic distributions of diatom species and communities. To this end, I use a combination of techniques: from digging through fossil sediments and counting diatoms on a microscope slide, to molecular phylogenetics and environmental DNA. Molecular phylogenies are an excellent tool to study the evolutionary history of a clade. Using phylogenetic techniques and fossil-time calibrations, I aim to answer questions regarding diatom diversification through time, including the speed, patterns and potential drivers of past diversification. Understanding biogeography and evolutionary history requires a thorough understanding of species boundaries. Because diatoms are notorious for harboring both cryptic diversity and many yet undescribed species, part of my research focuses on unravelling species boundaries, and describing new species in taxonomic work. Recently, my interest in speciation let me to shift my attention to the population-level, because this is where all the action happens! Using a combination of population genomics and transcriptomics, I aim to unravel how diatom populations are structured, and the role of local adaptation in driving population-level differentiation. Part of this research involves understanding how individual genotypes respond to environmental stress, and how this response differs between populations and species. To this end, I work with diatoms from a variety of places and habitats: from soils, to lakes and oceans, and from Antarctica to the Baltic Sea. In my current position as a postdoctoral researcher in the Alverson lab, I aim to understand how marine diatoms adapted to freshwater environments over evolutionary timescales. During my PhD at Ghent University and Meise Botanic Garden, I investigated the diversity, evolutionary history and biogeography of freshwater and terrestrial diatoms, with a strong focus on the Polar Regions. |
Publications in the spotlight
Over the years, my research received support from:
Research Foundation Flanders (FWO)
Belgian American Educational Foundation (B.A.E.F.)
Fulbright Belgium
Simons Foundation
National Science Foundation (NSF)
Belgian Federal Science Policy (BelSPO)
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Want to contact me?
Drop me an email at eveline.pinseel(at)gmail.com, or take a look at my social media:
Twitter (@EvelinePinseel) || Bluesky (@evelinepinseel.bsky.social)
Mastodon (@[email protected]) || Instagram (@biologist.eveline)
ResearchGate || LinkedIn || GoogleScholar || ORCID || Web of Science || GitHub
Research Foundation Flanders (FWO)
Belgian American Educational Foundation (B.A.E.F.)
Fulbright Belgium
Simons Foundation
National Science Foundation (NSF)
Belgian Federal Science Policy (BelSPO)
---
Want to contact me?
Drop me an email at eveline.pinseel(at)gmail.com, or take a look at my social media:
Twitter (@EvelinePinseel) || Bluesky (@evelinepinseel.bsky.social)
Mastodon (@[email protected]) || Instagram (@biologist.eveline)
ResearchGate || LinkedIn || GoogleScholar || ORCID || Web of Science || GitHub