​Carita  Lindstedt

I am an evolutionary ecologist and entomologist currently working as an Academy Research Fellow in the University of Jyväskylä. 

My research aims to understand the role of natural selection in shaping the adaptive genetic and phenotypic variation in antipredator strategies. I study the lifehistory costs of cooperative antipredator defences and how ecological and social conditions shape the evolution of antipredator strategies and animal signalling. I use a combination of behavioural, physiological, quantitative genetic and functional ecological techniques both in the field and in the laboratory. Currently my main study species are pine sawflies but I have also worked with other prey (e.g. burying beetles and wood tiger moths) and predator species both in the lab and in the wild.

In addition my research, I am also a group leader in an autonomous science education project (Evolution in action) that we acquired funding for from the Tieteen tiedotus ry, European Society for Evolutionary Biology (years 2019-2020) and Kone foundation (2020-2022). I am also leading a Science testers -science education project funded by Finnish Cultural Foundation at Central-Finland in 2020-2021.

I am currently looking for a PhD-student for a fully funded position to study experimentally natural and social selection on cooperation in pine sawflies. DL 31.12.20. You can find more information here: https://rekry.saima.fi/certiahome/open_job_view.html?did=5600&jc=12&id=000010062&lang=fi
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