Self-portrait in the wild
The web site of Niklas Janz
I am an associate professor (Docent) in ecology at the Department of Zoology of Stockholm University.
I work with the interaction between butterflies and their host plants. Primarily, I am interested in the driving forces behind host range evolution, with special emphasis on search behavior.
Since spring 2007 I am also involved in the Centre for the study of Cultural Evolution at Stockholm University. My prime interests in this area are cultural speciation and the application of phylogenetic methods to cultural evolution.
Research
Plant-insect interactions
I am heading a reseach group on insect-plant interactions at the Department of Zoology. The seed plants and the herbivorous insects that feed on them account for about 50% of all species on earth. Moreover, herbivorous insects serve as food for many of the remaining insects, as well as for a good deal of the vertebrate species. It is therefore no understatement that most of earth's biodiversity scales up from angiosperm plants and plant-feeding insects. Consequently, a good understanding of insect-plant interactions is imperative if we want to understand the origin and maintenance of biodiversity in terrestrial ecosystems, including agricultural ones.
Our prime focus of interest is to understand the processes that drive the evolution of host plant range, and in extension, host shifts and speciation.
I'll tell you a little bit more about this research if you click the research link. You can also view my list of publications and, in most cases, download the publications in pdf format.
Cultural Evolution
As a part of the EU-sponsored project “Cultaptation”, I have recently become involved with the newly formed Centre for the study of Cultural Evolution, where we try to understand the evololution of cumulative culture through processes that, to some extent, resemble biological evolution. Read more under the “research” link, or see the web pages of the Center and the Cultaptation project.
Other interests
When I am not doing science, I write. My first novel was published in 2008. See my book home page if you are interested (in Swedish).
Getting some expert help in the field
