Trial Lecture
Title: Integrative taxonomy in the age of genomics
Time and place: October 16, 2026, 10:15 AM, Tøyen hovedgård
Public Defence
Adjudication Committee
- Associate Professor Anna Papadopoulou, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Cyprus
- Dr Lars Podsiadlowski, LIB Leibniz-Institute for Analysis of Biodiversity Change, The Museum Koenig Bonn
- Associate Professor Siri Birkeland, Natural History Museum, University of Oslo
Chair of the Defence
- Research Director and Professor Hugo de Boer, Natural History Museum, University of Oslo
Supervisors
- Professor Torsten Hugo Struck, Natural History Museum, University of Oslo
- Associate Professor Vladimir Gusarov, Natural History Museum, University of Oslo
- Professor Derek S. Sikes, Department of Biology and Wildlife, University of Alaska Museum, Fairbanks, Alaska, USA
Summary
Flightless organisms are generally expected to have limited dispersal, yet some occupy remarkably large geographic ranges. This thesis investigates this apparent paradox in Aegialites, a genus of small, flightless beetles specialized to rocky intertidal habitats and distributed across much of the North Pacific.
By combining molecular, genomic and population genomic approaches, the thesis establishes the first comprehensive evolutionary framework for Aegialites. The results support substantially fewer species than previously proposed based on morphology, while also revealing previously unrecognized diversity. The first mitochondrial and high-quality nuclear genomes for the genus were generated. The genomes were relatively compact, and comparisons with other beetles revealed no evidence that adaptation to the intertidal environment involved extensive changes in genome organization or gene content.
Population genomic analyses revealed strong geographic structure, but striking differences in connectivity among regions. California populations were strongly genetically differentiated across relatively short distances, whereas populations from Russia and Japan retained evidence of connectivity across more than 1,500 kilometers. Together, these findings show that limited active dispersal can generate strong population structure locally without preventing broad geographic distributions over evolutionary timescales. Historical demographic processes and occasional long-distance dispersal may therefore both contribute to the distribution of these flightless beetles.
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