Curriculum Vitae
I am an evolutionary ecologist with a broad interest in genetic and ecological aspects of plant adaptation. My research includes the following topics:
Transgenerational effects of stress in asexual plants. I use apomictic dandelions as a model system. Apomicts produce clonal seeds and apomictic lineages are considered evolutionary dead ends because their limited genetic variation makes it difficult to adaptively respond to a changing environment. However, within-lineage variation may be generated via genetic and/or nongenetic responses to environmental stress. We explore maternal effects of biotic and abiotic stress exposure on offspring traits. Heritable epigenetic variation is also generated by environmental stress in dandelions: several stresses induce changes in genomic methylation patterns that are subsequently transferred to offspring (as demonstrated via methylation-sensitive AFLPs). It is also likely that stress reactivates transposons, for instance via a release of methylation-based silencing mechanisms, and this can contribute to genetic variation within lineages. I am exploring environment-induced transgenerational effects, hoping to gain insight in the potential that these processes have to affect plant adaptation and evolution.
Plant-pathogen interactions and the evolutionary maintenance of plant sexual reproduction. One popular hypothesis for the evolutionary success of sexual reproduction, despite its well-established costs compared to asexual reproduction, is that continued genetic re-shuffling of host genotypes permits hosts to stay ahead of their specialized parasites and pathogens, to which they might succumb if there is no constant production of new or rare genotypes that escape infection. This 'Red Queen' hypothesis has attracted a lot of theoretical work, but empirical evidence is quite scarce and limited to very few study systems. I use the natural sex-asex variation in the common dandelion to empirically test some Red Queen predictions. For instance, are natural distribution patterns of sexual and asexual dandelions associated with pathogen incidence? Within populations, do we find evidence that rare dandelion genotypes escape infection and have higher fitness than common genotypes? And can changes in host genotype frequencies over time be explained by differential vulnerability to their natural pathogen populations? This work focuses largely on interactions between dandelions and a specialized rust fungus, that occurs in many dandelion populations in north-western Europe.
Other topics of ongoing and previous work include:
- Ecological and genetic factors that affect biological invasions
- Statistical data analysis - I give statistical support in a variety of collaborative projects
- QTL mapping in natural populations and interconnected mapping populations (computer simulations, postdoc at Purdue University, Indiana, US)
- Genetic basis of local adaptation in wild barley populations (PhD work, Utrecht University and Netherlands Institute of Ecology)
CV:
- 2010 - now : Researcher (tenure track), Dept. Terrestrial Ecology, Netherlands Institute of Ecology. Personal NWO-VIDI grant for innovative research to study ecological and evolutionary aspects of epigenetic inheritance in asexual dandelions.
- 2009 - 2010: Researcher (fixed-term), Dept. Terrestrial Ecology, Netherlands Institute of Ecology; and Laboratory of Nematology, WUR, Wageningen.
- 2005 - 2009: Independent postdoc with the Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-CTE). Personal NWO-VENI grant for innovative research to study the role of pathogens in driving the evolution of sexual reproduction in dandelions.
- 2003 - 2005: Postdoc with Dr Lauren McIntyre, Computational Genomics, Purdue University. Computer simulation studies for QTL detection in natural populations and in diallel mating designs.
- 1998 - 2003: PhD studies in plant evolutionary ecology, carried out at the Department of Plant Population Biology of the Netherlands Institute of Ecology and at the Institute of Evolution, Haifa University. Defended thesis at Utrecht University.
- 1996 - 1998: Projects for rainforest conservation in Costa Rica, carried out via Bioproca Foundation and Wageningen University.
- 1995: MSc in Ecology, University of Nijmegen.
Selected Publications
2011:
Verhoeven KJF, M Macel, LM Wolfe & A Biere (2011). Population admixture, plant invasions and the balance between local adaptation and inbreeding depression. Proceedings of the Royal Society B - Biological Sciences 278: 2-8 (pdf)
2010:
Brinkman EP, WH van der Putten, EJ Bakker & KJF Verhoeven (2010). Plant-soil feedback: Experimental approaches, statistical analyses and biological interpretations. Journal of Ecology 98: 1063-1073 (pdf)
Verhoeven KJF, G Casella & LM McIntyre (2010). Epistasis: Obstacle or advantage for mapping complex traits? PlosONE 5(8): e12264 (pdf)
Richards CL, O Bossdorf & KJF Verhoeven (2010). Understanding natural epigenetic variation. New Phytologist 187: 562-564 (commentary) (pdf)
Harvey JA, A Biere, T Fortuna, LEM Vet, T Engelkes, E Morrien, R Gols, KJF Verhoeven, H Vogel, M Macel, HM Heidel-Fischer, K Schramm & WH van der Putten (2010). Ecological fits, misfits and lotteries involving insect herbivores on the invasive plant Bunias orientalis. Biological Invasions 12: 3045-3059 (pdf)
Verhoeven KJF, JJ Jansen, PJ van Dijk & A Biere (2010). Stress-induced DNA methylation changes and their heritability in asexual dandelions. New Phytologist 185: 1108-1118 (pdf)
Verhoeven KJF, PJ van Dijk & A Biere (2010). Changes in genomic methylation patterns during the formation of triploid asexual dandelion lineages. Molecular Ecology 19: 315-324 (pdf)
2009:
Verhoeven KJF, A Biere, JA Harvey & WF van der Putten (2009). Plant Invaders and their novel natural enemies: who is naive? Ecology Letters 12: 107-117 (pdf)
2008:
Engelkes T, E Morrien, KJF Verhoeven, TM Bezemer, A Biere, JA Harvey, LM McIntyre, WLM Tamis & WH van der Putten (2008). Successful range-expanding plants experience less above-ground and below-ground enemy impact. Nature 456: 946-948 (pdf)
Biere A & KJF Verhoeven (2008). Local adaptation and the consequences of being dislocated from coevolved enemies. New Phytologist 180: 265-268 (commentary) (pdf)
Verhoeven KJF, H Poorter, E Nevo & A Biere (2008). Habitat-specific natural selection at a flowering-time QTL is a main driver of local adaptation in two wild barley populations. Molecular Ecology 17: 3416–3424 (pdf)
2006:
Verhoeven KJF, JL Jannink & LM McIntyre (2006). Using mating designs to uncover QTL and the genetic architecture of complex traits. Heredity 69: 139-149 (pdf)
2005:
Verhoeven KJF & K Simonsen (2005). Genomic haplotype blocks may not accurately reflect spatial variation in historic recombination intensity. Molecular Biology and Evolution 22(3): 735-740 (pdf)
Verhoeven KJF, K Simonsen & LM McIntyre (2005). Implementing false discovery rate control: increasing your power. Oikos 108: 643-647 (pdf)
Poorter H, CPE van Rijn, TK Vanhala, KJF Verhoeven, YEM de Jong, P Stam & H Lambers (2005). A genetic analysis of traits underlying fast- and slow-growth syndromes in Hordeum spontaneum. Oecologia 142: 360-377 (pdf)
2004:
Verhoeven KJF, TK Vanhala, A Biere, E Nevo & JMM van Damme (2004). The genetic basis of adaptive population differentiation: a QTL analysis of fitness traits in two wild barley populations from contrasting habitats. Evolution 58: 270-288 (pdf)
Verhoeven KJF, A Biere, E Nevo & JMM van Damme (2004). Can a genetic correlation with seed weight constrain adaptive evolution of seedling desiccation tolerance in wild barley? International Journal of Plant Sciences 165: 281-288 (pdf)
Verhoeven KJF, A Biere, E Nevo & JMM van Damme (2004). Differential selection of growth rate-related traits in wild barley, Hordeum spontaneum, in contrasting greenhouse nutrient environments. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 17: 184-196 (pdf)
Volis S, KJF Verhoeven, S Mendlinger & D Ward (2004). Phenotypic selection and regulation of reproduction in different environments in wild barley. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 17: 1121-1131 (pdf)
Downloads
Software:
tabulator.xls (831.5 KB)
A small Excel simulation utility to compare the performance of different statistical multiple testing alpha correction procedures, as an appendix to Verhoeven, Simonsen & McIntyre (2005) Oikos 108: 643-647
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