VAPPU-BIOSKA 4/2020 NEWS

Minister of the Environment and Climate Change Krista Mikkonen renewed professor

Janne Kotiaho's mandate as the chair of the multidisciplinary Nature Panel (Suomen

Luontopaneeli). The new term is for the period 1.5.2020–31.12.2023. Congratulations!

Read more in JYU press release:

https://www.jyu.fi/fi/ajankohtaista/arkisto/2020/04/professori-janne-kotiaho-jatkaa-

suomen-luontopaneelin-puheenjohtajana

Yingying Wang, who is working as a postdoc in Eva Kallio’s group, has won The Handane

Prize of the British Ecological Society: “The Functional Ecology JBS Haldane Award is given

each year to the best paper in the journal from an early career author”. Congratulations

Yingying! Read the press release here https://www.britishecologicalsociety.org/british-

ecological-society-announces-journal-prize-winners/ and the award winning article here

https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2435.13311.

UPCOMING EVENTS

14th International Coregonid Symposium has turned into WebCoregonid2020

webinar which will be organized in 22-26 June 2020.

NEW PEOPLE

Jussi Vesamäki has started his PhD under supervision of Sami Taipale and Riitta

Nissinen. He got his MSc degree at the University of Eastern Finland. In his Master´s

thesis, he studied fatty acids of birch´s (Betula sp.) foliar fungi in littoral zones of clear and

humic lakes. Here in Jyväskylä, he will study microbe-driven biodegradation of

microplastics in freshwater lakes.

Please also welcome Anu Käppi, who will work in Evolution in action – project for the next

3 years! She will help in coordinating the project, building up networks with schools and

conduct EIA-workshops at school visits. She has previous work experience from the Natural

History Museum of Jyväskylä and in producing environmental education materials for e.g.

Luontoliitto.

NEW PROJECTS

New H2020 transfer-of-knowledge consortium together with Estonian University of

Life Sciences, University of Jyväskylä, and Århus University: “TREICLAKE: TOWARDS

RESEARCH EXCELLENCE AND INNOVATION CAPACITY IN STUDING LAKE

ECOSYSTEMS FUNCTIONAL STRUCTURES AND CLIMATE CHANGE

IMPACT”. This is a three-year consortium project starting 1.1.2021 with a funding of

~215000 euros to JYU. Key people involved from JYU: Anna Kuparinen, Mikko

Kiljunen, Sami Taipale, Silva Uusi-Heikkilä & Antti Eloranta.

ABOUT BIOSKA

This monthly

newsletter summarizes

recent activities and

achievements in our

department. Whenever

you know about new

publications, projects,

people, courses or other

things you would like to

share with your

colleagues, please

contact

antti.p.eloranta@jyu.fi.

People working in our

department are

highlighted in bold.

Click the name to

access personal

webpages.

________________

Jussi Vesamäki

Anu Käppi

Great news from the Academy of Finland! Heikki Takala and Carita Lindsted-Kareksela have got

five-year Academy Research Fellow positions! Heikki’s project “Fytokromipohjaiset moduulit – toiminta ja

sovellukset” focuses on phytochrome photoreceptors (see also “bulletin”

below). Carita writes about her project “YHTEISTYÖN JA HUIJAAMISEN

EVOLUUTIO VAIHTELEVISSA YMPÄRISTÖOLOSUHTEISSA”: “The project

will investigate how direct fitness costs and benefits of cooperation and

exploitation change under various ecological and social conditions. The

expected results will provide important information on ecological and

evolutionary processes that shape evolutionary transitions towards more

complex sociality: group living and cooperation within a group. The expected

results will also have applied importance as they will be used to predict how

variation in social behavior and its consequences on individual fitness (e.g.

immunology) contribute to the population dynamics of pest species under

changing environmental conditions.”

Panu Halme has started a new one-year project "Monimuotoiset puronvarret" ("Biodiverse brook-side forests"),

funded by Maaseuturahasto, in collaboration with Metsäkeskus and focusing on brook-side forest biodiversity and

science communication. Maiju Peura who just defended her thesis will work as a part-time post doc researcher in

the project. The other half of her hours Maiju works for Forest Stewardship Council Finland (FSC) where she

develops an endangered species action plan together with Panu and five species experts from SYKE, UEF and

LUOMUS. Our alumni Hennariikka Mäenpää will also work in the project as a project researcher for the next five

months.

Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke) got continuation to a large national “innovation in aquaculture”

project, funded by the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund. Our department is one of the ten partners, and

during the years 2020-2022, these funds (177 000 €) will allow our department to train students to specialize

especially in recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS) through a PhD project (led by Tuula Tuhkanen), and several

MSc theses regarding RAS microbiology (Marja Tiirola) and RAS technologies (Juhani Pirhonen) as well as

internships. https://www.kalankasvatus.fi/innovaatio-ohjelmien-toinen-kausi-kaynnistyy/

Maaria Kankare’s new project ‘ColdStress’ was granted INTERACT Transnational Access to NIBIO Svanhovd

Research Station in Norway and Abisko Scientific Research Station in Sweden. She will also try to arrange

collaboration with Western Arctic Research Centre (WARC) in Canada. Access includes cost allocation for 5 days

visits and permission to collect samples from the station districts (funding for max

5500 euros costs). The aim of ColdStress is to collect northern and very cold

resistant fly species from Drosophila virilis group to get fresh material for genome

analyses (e.g. chromosomal inversion analyses). The visits were planned to be

carried out this May and June, but will now be postponed to next year.

NEW SCIENTIFIC ARTICLES

Burton T., Lakka Hanna-Kaisa & Einum S. (2020) Acclimation capacity and rate change through life in the

zooplankton Daphnia. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 287, https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2020.0189.

Burdfield-Steel E., Schneider J., Mappes Johanna & Dobler Susanne (2020) Testing the effectiveness of pyrazine

defences against spiders. Chemoecology, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00049-020-00305-5

Claesson E., Yuan Wahlgren W., Takala Heikki, Pandey S., Castillon L., Kuznetsova Valentyna, Henry L.,

Panman M., Carrillo M., Kübel J., Nanekar Rahul, Isaksson L., Nimmrich A., Cellini A., Morozov Dmitry, Maj

M., Kurttila Moona, Bosman R., Nango E., Tanaka R., Tanaka T., Fangjia L., Iwata S., Owada S., Moffat K.,

Groenhof Gerrit, Stojković E.A., Ihalainen Janne & Schmidt M., Westenhoff S. (2020) The primary structural

photoresponse of phytochrome proteins captured by a femtosecond X-ray laser. eLife 9: e53514.

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.53514 * Read more about this research below!

Given Cindy, Häikiö E., Kumar Manoj & Nissinen Riitta (2020) Tissue-specific dynamics in the endophytic

bacterial communities in arctic pioneer plant Oxyria digyna. Frontiers in Plant Science,

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpls.2020.00561/

Kikuchi D., Waldron S., Dobler S., Valkonen Janne & Mappes Johanna (2020) Biased predation could promote

convergence yet maintain diversity within Müllerian mimicry rings of Oreina leaf beetles. Journal of Evolutionary

Biology. https://doi.org/10.1111/jeb.13620

Kronholm Ilkka, Ormsby T., McNaught K., Selker E.U. & Ketola Tarmo (2020) Marked Neurospora crassa

strains for competition experiments and Bayesian methods for fitness estimates. G3: Genes|Genomes|Genetics 10:

1261-1270 https://doi.org/10.1534/g3.119.400632

Klemme Ines, Hyvärinen P. & Karvonen Anssi (2020) Negative associations between parasite avoidance,

resistance and tolerance predict host health in salmonid fish populations. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 287:

20200388. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2020.0388 Read also JYU press release!

https://www.jyu.fi/en/current/archive/2020/04/salmonid-fishes-use-different-mechanism-to-defend-against-

parasite-infections

Lindstedt-Kareksela Carita, Suisto Kaisa, Burdfield-Steel E., Winters Anne & Mappes Johanna (2020)

Defence against predators incurs high reproductive costs for the aposematic moth Arctia plantaginis. Behavioral

Ecology, https://doi.org/10.1093/beheco/araa033

Taipale Sami J., Peltomaa E. & Salmi Pauliina (2020) Variation in ω-3 and ω-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids

produced by different phytoplankton taxa at early and late growth phase. Biomolecules 10: 559;

https://doi.org/10.3390/biom1004055.

Temperli C., Clemens Blattert, Golo S., Urs-Beat B. & Esther T. (2020) Trade-offs between ecosystem service

provision and the predisposition to disturbances: a NFI-based scenario analysis, Forest Ecosystems 7: 27.

https://doi.org/10.1186/s40663-020-00236-1

NEW REPORTS AND POPULAR-SCIENCE ARTICLES

Könönen K., Ormio H. & Lakka Hanna-Kaisa (2020) Äyriäis- ja nilviäistyöryhmän retki Käsivarteen elokuussa

2019. Lenninsiipi, lajinsuojelun verkkolehti. Huhtikuu 2020: 6–7. https://www.syke.fi/fi-

FI/Ajankohtaista/Uutiskirjeet/Lenninsiipi__lajisuojelun_verkkolehti(9094)

NEWS FROM KATOAVA LUONTO PROJECT

Katoava luonto project combines scientific and artistic methods to study ecological compensation. The project

aimed to have a major series of events during this spring, but corona virus changed the plans almost totally. Satu

Tuittila who works in the project as a dancer-choreographer-scientist wrote an interesting blog text on the situation

to the Turku city blog (in Finnish): https://www.turku.fi/blogit/kulttuuriblogi/pienet-tarkeat-lastentanssiprojekti

Katoava luonto website: https://www.jyu.fi/science/fi/bioenv/tutkimus/luonnonvarat/katoavaluonto

BERG GROUP GOES ON TWITTER!

New twitter account announcement for the Boreal Ecosystem Research Group @JYU_BERG! How will #boreal

#forest look like in 100 years? Follow our work and results at jyu.fi/berg @uniofjyvaskyla, @jyscience &

@JYU_WISDOM #ForestEcology #biodiversity #ecosystemservices #sustainability #ClimateChange”

SCIENCE AND SUSHI– TIME-RESOLVED CRYSTALLOGRAPHY OF PHYTOCHROMES IN

JAPAN

Researchers from the University of Jyväskylä, including Prof. Janne

Ihalainen with his group, have revealed atomic-scale details of the

light-induced changes in phytochrome photoreceptors. The project was

conducted in a large international collaboration, which included

several trips to SACLA, Japan. SPring-8 Angstrom Compact free

electron Laser (SACLA) is a free-electron laser (X-FEL) that produces

extremely high-intensity X-rays, enabling time-resolved

crystallography of protein microcrystals. The visits have recently

culminated in a publication in open-access journal eLife*. Besides

intensive data acquisition, the beamline visits allowed the researchers

to familiarize themselves with Japanese culture and cuisine:

If you want to learn more how time-resolved crystallography is practiced, see following video covering the

experiment at SACLA: https://youtu.be/x_acCzfiwb8

EVOLUTION IN ACTION

Evolution in action -science education project has produced free

openly available material to fill the need for remote teaching, while also

offering outdoor activities for children of all ages!

These remote teaching materials focus on animal coloration,

pollinators and plants. Participants will also learn about biological

interactions such as predation and animal communication, vegetation

zones and natural history. Our activities encourage children to go

outside to observe and explore nature – whether it is at the park

nearby, in your own garden or at the flower pot on the balcony.

Teachers can adapt materials and activities to suit the courses and level

of their teaching.

The Evolution in action-project is currently located in the Department of Biological and Environmental Science at

the University of Jyväskylä (Finland). The Project is funded by the Kone Foundation and Tieteentiedotus ry. Remote

teaching materials and activities to do at home are available on the Finnish and English webpages

https://www.evolutioninaction.fi You can also follow us in Twitter: @EvoWorkshops and Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/evolution_in_action/ More information: Leader of the project Dr. Carita Lindsted-

Kareksela, carita.a.lindstedt@jyu.fi

WORKING FROM HOME IN SEMI-ISOLATION: THE PERSPECTIVE OF PHD STUDENTS

Written by Andreas Eriksson: It has now been 45 days since we got the order to work from home following the

spread of Covid-19. This has put strain on us all in one way or another and forced a change in working habits. As

the chair of Sauna and Support (a group for PhD students in biology), I sent a survey to my fellow PhD student

asking them how they are coping in semi-isolation and working from home. I received an answer from 44 % of the

students at our department; 69 % of the respondents were female and 31 % male.

Each respondent were asked to assess their own psychosocial wellbeing both prior the order to work from home was

issued and 3 weeks afterwards. When establishing the psychosocial baseline, though not significant, we found that

the responding males, as a group, ranked their psychosocial wellbeing better than their female peers. On the whole,

respondent data indicate existing issues with psychosocial wellbeing, something that has to be addressed and

mitigated. Three weeks later, 35 % of the respondents reported no change to their wellbeing while an equal share

reported deteriorated wellbeing while 19 % reported improved mental wellbeing but at the same time feeling worse

physiologically. Only two respondents report better physiologically and mental wellbeing. These changes in

wellbeing seems to affect how much work that the respondents are getting done as 54 % of the respondents claim

decreased work progress while 38 % report no effect at all. However, it seems that most students are in contact with

their supervisors at a weekly basis.

Ultimately, 7 respondents perceive that their study progress will suffer from this period of semi-isolation while 11

are unsure and 8 students claim that their progress will not suffer. However, only time will tell if the study progress

will suffer or not.

Even though several respondents report more time alone, less interaction with their peers and issues separating

work- and spare time, it seems that the respondents are handling the situation fairly well through different means.

Some are spending more time with their families, hobbies, mid-day walks and focusing on writing manuscripts.

Though it seems that both wellbeing and work progress are suffering initially, a follow-up survey will be conducted

in mid-May in order to investigate any changes to wellbeing.

Try yourself or with kids!

Make your own waggle-dance video and

#waggledancethroughcorona or observe

pollinators and their behavior in a

nearby park, forest or garden. Share a

#storyofmywindow with your friends

and classmates or see how it feels to do

animal behavior research from your

own couch. These materials are suitable

in phenomea based learning in Biology,

but cover areas also in Geography, Arts,

English and Mathematics classes.