Hi!
My name is Masahito Tsuboi. In the coming few years, I will be part of the Biology Department at Lund University (LU), studying the evolution of wing morphology in two insect lineages, the family Drosophilidae and the order Odonata, with Erik Svensson at LU and Thomas Hansen at University of Oslo.
Personally, I think comparative studies are fascinating because they allow us to explore the phenotypic diversity across the entire tree of life. This initially motivated me to conduct a phylogenetic comparative study back in 2009 with Niclas Kolm at Uppsala University (now he is at Stockholm University) as part of my MSc degree project. I continued there as a PhD doing phylogenetic
comparative studies on brain sizes in cichlids, pipefishes and seahorses. On a more technical side, I am concerned over the sharp divide between micro- and macroevolutionary biologists. My project in Lund will use a combination of phylogenetic comparative method and quantitative/population genetic theories and tools to reduce the divide among evolutionary biologists interested in phenomena at different time scales.
I will be mostly in Oslo for the first two years, and only be regularly present at Lund in my third year. Nevertheless, I am very excited to be part of the institution and am very much looking forward to share ideas and thoughts over the coming years with you!
