Unraveling plant histories
through ancient and
modern DNA
Welcome to my site
My research group is based at the department of Environmental Biology at Sapienza University of Rome and we use ancient and modern DNA coming from different places and substrates to unravel the stories hidden in plants, whether they come from modern populations, historical digs, archaeological findings or lake sediments.
Explore our pages on people, research, publications, teaching and photos to learn more about what we do.
NEWS
2024 - We recruited two new postdoc fellows and we cored two more lakes (Nemi and Martignano) for our #PRIN2022 project. 2023 27 October - We kicked off our #PRIN2022 project and cored Lago Grande di Monticchio. We are now looking for 1 postdoc to join our group: apply here. June - We received funds for our #PRIN2022 project VOLARE which introduces innovative #sedDNA solutions, paleolimnological methods, ecological surveys on central and southern Italy's volcanic lake sediments 2022 December - Kevin Nota received PAGES Early-Career Award! https://pastglobalchanges.org/news/136761- March -Our @NatureComm paper on spruce postglacial recolonization of Fenoscandia is now out. 2021 October - PAGES working group on sedimentary DNA analyses PaleoEcoGen created. October - New PhD students: welcome Jessica Rampazzo and Martina Farese! - October - Mini-Symposium Recovering DNA from sedimentary archives. July - Are you a researcher who wants to collaborate with us? You can apply for a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship with Sapienza as host institution. June - Guest PhD course at Sapienza University on Modeling Species Distribution with Bob Muscarella from Uppsala University photos. January - The sedaDNA scientific society is born! 2020 December - With Giorgio Manzi's group at La Sapienza we received large-size grants from the University Research Call. September - Tim Temizyurek (Meme MSc students) join our group. July - Sapienza publishes the PhD Call 2020-21 / 36th Cycle and assigned 12 postgraduate PhD positions in Environmental & Evolutionary Biology and “BE-FOR-ERC Call” to assign fellowships for research projects of excellence. March - Online Ancient Environmental DNA Cyberinfrastructure Workshop organised by Neotoma and Wisconsin University. January - Erasmus students Luca Turolo and Katerina Tasiouli join our group. 2019 - October Laura starts working at Sapienza University and is guest researcher at Uppsala University. July - We organize an ancient DNA session at the INQUA conference in Dublin (photos). May - Fieldwork sampling ancient spruce clones in Sweden (photos). April - Laura elected chairman of the Swedish Phytogeographical Society SVS - April Jill Pelto visits us with two exhibitions at our Uppsala lab and Tromsø Universities (photos). 2018 November - Are you a researcher who wants to work with us? Apply for a postdoc position at the Linnean Centre for Plant Biology. May - With the SVS Society we visited Monticchio Lake in southern Italy (photos). May - Outreaching and celebrating Linnaeus’ birthday at the Linnaeus’ Day in Uppsala (photos). June - We organized a session on ancient DNA from at the IAL/IPAL joint meeting in Stockholm. 2017 November - ScieLifeLab awards funding to our group within the Swedish Biodiversity Program. July - We organize an ancient DNA session at the SEB meeting in Göteborg. August - New Phd student recruited: welcome to Kevin Nota in our group! March - Together with Katerina Guschanski we set up a new ancient DNA labotatory. 2016 November - The Swedish Research Council Formas awards funding for our research on metagenomic from ancient lake sediments. October - At GFZ in Potsdam we sample sedimentary material from Monticchio Lake long record for shotgun DNA analyses (photos). September - ScieLifeLab awards long-term bioinformatic support (WABI) to our group on metagenomic from ancient sediments. May - Outreaching at the Linnaeus’ Day in Uppsala to celebrate Linnaeus’ birthday (photos). March - ScieLifeLab symposium on Ancient environmental DNA (photos). 2015 April - PhD course Organised att Uppsala University on Species Distribution Modeling under Past and Future Climate with Signe Normand from Aarhus University.