About
Welcome to my website! I am an evolutionary biologist based in Uppsala, Sweden. There, I am working towards a better understanding of the evolutionary processes behind the striking diversity in wild animal populations. My research focuses on birds and the links between their genetic variation and that of observable traits (known as phenotypes). What are the mechanisms behind the origin and maintenance of the enormous diversity of sounds, colors and shapes we witness across avian systems?
I particularly enjoy studying phenotypic variability in the context of ecological and social interactions, since trait variability can affect the species’ ability to adapt to the changing environment, but also to discriminate whether other individuals belong to the same species. In the latter case, failure to differentiate individuals from other species may lead to hybridization. On the one hand, hybridization is a fast route through which species can evolve, since it can facilitate the emergence of new variants that can spur diversification should they confer an evolutive advantage.
On the other hand, it is an homogenizing force that can quickly erase genetic differences that two lineages may have accumulated over time. I find this controversial paradox one of the most fascinating in nature: I therefore seek a better understanding of the evolutionary importance of hybridization in birds. From a broader perspective, my work resonates with ongoing efforts to understand how species originate, evolve, and get extinct.
But why is it important to study biodiversity?
News
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Darwin’s finch paper published
October 2026 – I am happy to announce that my first publication on the iconic Darwin’s finches is finally out in Nature Communications! We embarked on a study aimed at dissecting morphological and genetic differences among Galápagos tree finches to address long-standing questions about their evolution raised before genomic evidence become available. One of the highlights of this investigation was the discovery of a large tree finch lineage in which genetic differentiation with the closely related small tree finch is essentially confined to one autosomal region, whose allelic variation shifts them from one phenotypic optimum to another. This striking example of genetic mosaicism, likely arising through a long history of hybridization, adds to a growing body of evidence that hybridization and divergence are not mutually exclusive processes, but can interact to generate evolutionary novelty during the early stages of speciation.
You can find the full article online.
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EVOFINCH – field phase 2
October 2026 – The second field trip of the EVOFINCH project has been successfully concluded! A total of eight Galápagos islands have been visited in the past six weeks, including some in the remote north of the archipelago, including Genovesa, Marchena, Wolf, and Darwin. In addition to the samples I collected earlier this year, I have sampled 15 of the currently recognized Darwin’s finch species! Let’s DNA sequencing begin!
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Fieldwork in Galápagos!
January 2026 – The field phase of the EVOFINCH project has finally started! In the next month, I will be visiting Santa Cruz Island, Daphne Major, San Cristobal and Española to collect Darwin’s finch blood samples for long-read sequencing!! See you at the end of February!
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ARGEvol conference attended
November 2025 – I attended a 3-day meeting in Portugal aimed at demonstrating the potential and foster the use and development of methods based on ancestral recombination graphs in evolutionary biology inference. A thought provoking conference and a great community! See you soon!
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Matteo presents study on Galapagos tree finches
July 2025 – In summer 2025, I joined the Ecological and Evolutionary Genomics Gordon Research Conference to present an early version of a study we are performing on Camarhynchus tree finches, one of the most recent groups of Darwin’s finches. In the picture, I am reading an excerpt from David Lack’s treaty from 1947, the last investigation of evolutionary dynamics within this group. We now explore such dynamics through the eyes of genomics and bioinformatics. In the photo, me, Thomas Bataillon and Rotem Gross.
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Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship received for EVOFINCH project
February 2025 – Delighted to announce that I have been awarded a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship for the EVOFINCH project with a score of 99.2/100!!! The fellowship will support my research on the evolutionary genomics of Darwin’s finches, focusing on the genomic architecture underlying their adaptive diversification. The project will kick-off in April 2025! Read short press release.