Tanja Schwander is a Swiss evolutionary biologist and professor at the

University of Lausanne The University of Lausanne (UNIL; french: links=no, Université de Lausanne) in Lausanne, Switzerland was founded in 1537 as a school of Protestant theology, before being made a university in 1890. The university is the second oldest in Switzer ...

. She is known for her work on the

Evolution of sexual reproduction Sexual reproduction is an adaptive feature which is common to almost all multicellular organisms and various unicellular organisms, with some organisms being incapable of asexual reproduction. Currently the adaptive advantage of sexual reprodu ...

Education and career

Tanja Schwander obtained her PhD in 2007 from the

on 'Evolution, maintenance and ecological consequences of genetic caste determination in Pogonomyrmex harvester ants'. Tanja Schwander then took a postdoctoral position at

Simon Fraser University Simon Fraser University (SFU) is a public research university in British Columbia, Canada, with three campuses, all in Greater Vancouver: Burnaby (main campus), Surrey, and Vancouver. The main Burnaby campus on Burnaby Mountain, located from ...

in Prof. Bernard J. Crespi's lab, before being hired as an independent researcher at the

University of Groningen The University of Groningen (abbreviated as UG; nl, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, abbreviated as RUG) is a Public university#Continental Europe, public research university of more than 30,000 students in the city of Groningen (city), Groningen in ...

. In 2013, she moved back to

to begin her own research group.

Work

Tanja Schwander's work has focused on understanding the consequences of asexuality using '' Timema'' stick insects as a model system. Her work has contributed to the current understanding of the

, the Paradox of Sex, and

Sexual conflict Sexual conflict or sexual antagonism occurs when the two sexes have conflicting optimal fitness strategies concerning reproduction, particularly over the mode and frequency of mating, potentially leading to an evolutionary arms race between male ...

Awards

* 2009. ''

John Maynard Smith Prize The John Maynard Smith Prize is a prize given by the European Society for Evolutionary Biology on odd years to an outstanding young researcher. It was first awarded in 1997 and is named after the evolutionary biologist John Maynard Smith (1920– ...

'' of the

European Society for Evolutionary Biology The European Society for Evolutionary Biology (ESEB) was founded in 1987 in Basel (Switzerland) with around 450 evolutionary biologists attending the inaugural congress. It is an academic society that brings together more than 1500 evolutionary bi ...

* 2020. ''

European Research Council The European Research Council (ERC) is a public body for funding of scientific and technological research conducted within the European Union (EU). Established by the European Commission in 2007, the ERC is composed of an independent Scientific ...

Consolidator Grant''

Notable publications

* "Molecular evidence for ancient asexuality in Timema stick insects", ''

Current Biology ''Current Biology'' is a biweekly peer-reviewed scientific journal that covers all areas of biology, especially molecular biology, cell biology, genetics, neurobiology, ecology, and evolutionary biology. The journal includes research articles, var ...

'' * "Deleterious mutation accumulation in asexual Timema stick insects", ''

Molecular Biology and Evolution ''Molecular Biology and Evolution'' is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution. It publishes work in the intersection of molecular biology and evo ...

'' * "Neutral and selection-driven decay of sexual traits in asexual stick insects", '' Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences'' * "Consequences of asexuality in natural populations: insights from stick insects", ''

''Bast J, Parker DJ, Dumas Z, Jalvingh KM, Tran Van P, Jaron KS, et al. (2018). Consequences of asexuality in natural populations: insights from stick insects. Mol Biol Evol 35: 1668–1677.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Schwander, Tanja Swiss biologists Swiss women academics Evolutionary biologists University of Lausanne alumni Academic staff of the University of Lausanne 1978 births Living people