Two papers out now from Simon's PhD project!

1) Changes in the Length of Grandparenthood in Finland 1790-1959, published in the Finnish Yearbook of Population Reasarch. In this paper, the team investigated how the shared time between grandparents and grandchildren changed across the demographic transition and with industrialisation. This shared time was low and stable before these major events, and began to increase rapidly after they began.

2) Limited support for the X-linked grandmother hypothesis in pre-industrial Finland, published in Biology Letters. Here, we tested whether slight differences in relatedness via the X-chromosome might lead to differences the survival of male and female grandchildren with maternal or paternal grandmothers. Though two of three predictions were supported, we concluded that the X-linked grandmother hypothesis cannot account for lineage differences by itself. 

Other News

Susanna Ukonaho defended her PhD thesis ”Mandates and incentives: implementing Finlands first vaccination campaign against smallpox” at the University of Turku in June 2024.

Lähes 2,5 miljoonan euron rahoituksella toteutettava tutkimus pureutuu vaikutuksiin, joita yhteiskunnan muuttuminen on aiheuttanut sukulaisverkostoille.

Virpi Lummaa

Professor of Evolutionary Biology Virpi Lummaa from the University of Turku in Finland has received a major funding from the European Research Council ERC.

Virpi Lummaa

Kaya Burgess, Science Reporter
Wednesday May 31 2023, 7:40am BST, The Times

The Times 31.5.2023 Grannies are great at keeping children healthy

Simon Chapman, Mirkka Danielsbacka, Antti O. Tanskanen, Mirkka Lahdenperä, Jenni Pettay and Virpi Lummaa published a paper in Behavioural Ecology