Rate My Professor Duur Aanen

Duur Aanen is a Personal Professor in the Laboratory of Genetics within the Biology faculty at Wageningen University & Research, holding the title of Professor in evolutionary biology. He earned his PhD in 1999 with a dissertation on the origin of species in mushroom-forming symbiotic fungi. After his doctorate, Aanen established a research program on the evolution of fungus-growing termites at the University of Copenhagen, where he was appointed Assistant Professor in 2004. In 2006, he returned to Wageningen University to further develop his research on termite-fungus symbioses and to initiate studies on the evolution of cooperation, using fungi as a key experimental model system.

Aanen's research specializations include population genetics, social evolution, the evolution of cooperation, levels of selection, and phylogenetic reconstruction, with a particular emphasis on fungal biology and symbiotic interactions such as those between fungus-growing termites and Termitomyces fungi. He has produced 111 research outputs, including 86 peer-reviewed journal articles, 5 book chapters, and various other contributions. His key publications encompass highly cited works like "Major clades of Agaricales: a multilocus phylogenetic overview" (2006), "The evolution of agriculture in insects" (2005), and "The evolution of fungus-growing termites and their mutualistic fungal symbionts" (2002). More recent contributions address topics such as mutation-rate plasticity in unicellular organisms (2019), the longevity of fungal mycelia and nuclear quality checks (2023), comparative genomics of Termitomyces species (2024), and the consequences of the dikaryotic life cycle of mushroom-forming fungi (2022). Aanen has received the prestigious NWO VIDI grant in 2008 and VICI grant in 2015. He served as editor for two issues of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B and delivered his inaugural speech titled "Science and myth in evolution" in 2020. Currently, he leads projects such as "Towards more resilient and versatile mushroom production" (2018–2022) and supervises PhD research on fungi in boreal peatlands and polar regions.