• I am an evolutionary biologist, interested in the interface between ecology and evolutionary biology. My research programme has both theoretical and empirical components.
• I explore problems such as how frequency-dependent processes maintains diversity, whether genetic polymorphisms or species in ecological communities. I also strive to understand how natural and sexual selection interact and affect population divergence, reproductive isolation and ultimately speciation and biodiversity. I am also interested in how phenotypic plasticity - including learning - can shape both population divergence and in population persistence and its role in evolutionary rescue vs. extinction by natural or sexual selection. We have also investigated how temperature affects natural and sexual selection and thereboy local adaptation, biogeographic patterns and phenotypic evolution on micro- and macroevolutionary time scales.
• Empirically, I focus on insects, particularly the order Odonata (dragonflies and damselflies) although I have also worked with other organisms, including birds (blue tits and ostriches), lizards and freshwater isopods.
• In my research group, we combine classical population biological studies in nature with field and laboratory experiments, population and quantitative genetic approaches, measurements of selection, genomics, phenomics and phylogenetic comparative methods. Currently, we address various problems ranging from the role of hybridization in explaining the phylogenetic distribution of colour polymorphisms in damselflies, to how to understand the causes of "Lewontin's Paradox" in primates.
• In recent years, we have increasingly adopted tools from Artificial Intelligence (AI), particularly Machine Learning (ML) and Computer Vision (CV) to quantify phenotypic variation and evolution.

Research group ("Svensson Lab")

Current PhD-students

Iain Moodie (co-advisor)   Sofie Nilén (main advisor) Zachary Nolen (co-advisor)

Current postdocs

Guillaume Lavanchy  Anna Penna  Natalie Roberts  Mikkel Skovrind

Alumni from my lab (many which I still collaborate with)

Moritz Luerig (former postdoc)

Masahito Tsuboi (former postdoc, Independent Researcher)

Stephen De Lisle (former postdoc, Junior Lecturer)

Lesley Lancaster (former postdoc, Professor)

Beatriz Willink (former PhD-student, Assistant Professor)

Anna Runemark (former PhD-student, Senior Lecturer)

Jessica Abbott (former PhD-student, Professor)

Kristina Karlsson Green (former PhD-student, Researcher)

Miguel Gomez-Llano (former postdoc, Junior Lecturer)

Viktor Nilsson-Örtman (former postdoc, Senior Lecturer)

Yuma Takahashi (former postdoc, Associate Professor)

Rachael Dudaniec (former postdoc, Senior Lecturer)

Fabrice Eroukhmanoff (former PhD-student)

Tom Gosden (former PhD-student)

Machteld Verzijden (former postdoc)

Natsu Katayama (former postdoc, Associate Professor)

Shawn Kuchta (former postdoc, Professor)

Katie Duryea (former postdoc, Associate Professor)

Benjamin Jarrett (former postdoc, Lecturer)