Lars Bach Ph.D.

Post doc

 

Research Interests

How do life history traits evolve in fluctuating environments? Life history characters evolve under environmental and ecological constraints, but they can themselves influence both the genetic and the demographic structure  of the population, which again feedback on the evolving traits. For example, dispersal behaviour affects the demography and genetic structure, but its own evolution is also affected by the environmental and ecological conditions (spatiotemporal fluctuations) and genetic effects (inbreeding depression and kin competition). The bi-directional feedback between the genetic and demographic structure and the evolving life history traits, require that such adaptive systems are modelled by techniques allowing for the appropriate complexity. Current work concerns the evolution of conditional dispersal in an adaptive individual-based modelling approach. (see Adaptive Dispersal and Genetic Mechanisms)
Other areas of interest comprise: 1) Spatial effects and the evolution of cooperative interactions. 2) The effect of selection in changing environment on the genetic composition of populations as well as the role of additive genetic variance versus genetic load.
The general interest comprises evolutionary processes, which include both the ecological and the genetic perspectives as for example the significance of phenotypic plasticity, canalisation and evolutionary capacitance.

BACH, L.A., Pedersen, R.B.F., Hayward, M., Stagegaard, J., Loeschcke, V. and Pertoldi, C. 2009. Assessing re-introductions of the African Wild dog (Lycaon pictus) in the Limpopo Valley Conservancy, South Africa, using the stochastic simulation program VORTEX. Journal for Nature Conservation. (in press).

Thirstrup, J.P., BACH, L.A., Pertoldi, C. and Loeschcke, V. (2009) Population viability analysis on domestic horse breeds (Equus caballus). Journal of Animal Science. 87(11): 3525-3535.

Ranta, E., BACH, L.A., Björklund, M., Kaitala, V., LUNDBERG, P. 2009. Competition enhances spatial genetic differentiation. Evolutionary Ecology Research 11: 1-8.

Björklund, M., Ranta, E., Kaitala, V., BACH, L.A., LUNDBERG, P. & Stenseth, N. C. 2009. Quantitative Trait Evolution and Environmental Change. PLoS One 4(4): xx.

Pertoldi, C., BACH, L.A. & Loeschcke V. 2008. On the brink between extinction and persistence. Biology Direct 3: 47.

Ranta, E., Kaitala V., Björklund M., LUNDBERG, P., BACH, L.A. and Stenseth N. Chr. 2008. Environmental forcing and genetic differentiation in subdivided populations. Evolutionary Ecology Research. 10(1): 1-9.

BACH, L.A., RIPA, J. & LUNDBERG, P. 2007. On the evolution of conditional dispersal under environmental and demographic stochasticity. Evolutionary Ecology Research 9: 1-11.

Pertoldi, C. and BACH, L.A. 2007. Evolutionary aspects of climate induced changes and the need for multidisciplinarity. Journal of Thermal Biology 32: 118-124.

Pertoldi, C., BACH, L.A., Barker, J.S.F., LUNDBERG, P. and Loeschcke, V. 2007. The consequences of the variance-mean rescaling effect on effective population size. Oikos 116: 769–774.

Nielsen, E.E., Bach, L.A, and Kotlicki, P. (2006). HYBRIDLAB (version 1.0): A program for generating simulated hybrids from population samples. Mol. Ecol. Notes 6: 971-973.

Bach, L.A., Helvik, T. and Christiansen, F.B. (2006). The evolution of n-player cooperation - threshold games and ESS bifurcations. J. Theor. Biol. 238: 426-434.

Bach, L.A., Thomsen, R., Pertoldi, C. and Loeschcke, V. (2006). Kin competition and the evolution of dispersal in an individual-based model. Ecol. Model. 192(3-4): 658-666.

Kristensen, T.N., Pertoldi, C., Pedersen, L.D., Andersen, D.H., Bach, L.A. and Loeschcke, V. (2004). The use of fluctuating asymmetry as a tool in toxicological studies - a new method for estimating the environmental variability. Ecol. Indicators 4: 73-81.

Bach, L.A., and Sumpter, D.J.T., Alsner, J. and Loeschcke, V. (2003). Spatial evolutionary games of interactions among generic cancer cells. J. Theor. Med. 5(1): 47-58.

Topping, C.J., Østergaard, S., Pertoldi, C. and Bach, L.A. (2003). Modelling the loss of genetic diversity in vole populations in a spatially and temporally varying environment. Ann. Zool. Fenn. 40: 255-267.

Pertoldi, C., Bach, L.A., Madsen, A.B., Randi, E. and Loeschcke, V. (2003). Developmental Instability of Eurasian badger (Meles meles) in Danish populations. J. Biogeography 30(6): 949-958.

Nielsen, E.E., Hansen, M.M. and Bach, L.A. (2001). Looking for a needle in a haystack: discovery of indigenous  Atlantic salmon in stocked populations. Cons. Genet. 2: 219-232.

Bach, L.A. Bentzen, S.M., Alsner, J. and Christiansen, F.B. (2001). An evolutionary-game model of tumour-cell interactions: Possible relevance to gene therapy. Euro. J. Cancer 37: 2116-2120.

2003- Post doc fellow, Dept. Theoretical Ecology, Lund University, Sweden. Advisor: Prof. Per Lundberg.

1999-2003. PhD-student, Dept. of Geneics & Ecology, Aarhus University, Denmark. PhD in Population Biology. Thesis title: Individual-based modelling applied to spatial effects in Evolutionary systems. Advisor: Prof. Volker Loeschcke and Assoc. Prof. Thiemo Krink.

-1999. MSc. in Population Biology. Science program, major in biology minor in physical education, Aarhus University & University of Copenhagen, Denmark. MSc. in Biology. Advisor: Prof. Volker Loeschcke and Assoc. Prof. Thiemo Krink (EvAlife Group) University of Aarhus.

Address: Theoretical Ecology, Ecology Building,  223 62 Lund, Sweden
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