Rate My Professor Suvi Ruuskanen

Ruuskanen's research focuses on the mechanisms underlying organismal adaptation to environmental changes within and across generations and species, integrating environmental sciences, ecotoxicology, physiological, behavioral, and molecular ecology. Key areas include physiology of stress and energetics, epigenetic and microbiome-mediated mechanisms, and eco-endocrinology with emphasis on thyroid hormones. She has led numerous funded projects, including an ERC Consolidator Grant (2024-2029) investigating the gut microbiome as a mechanism in host responses to environmental variation in birds, Academy of Finland grants on microbiome adaptations and winter physiology in wild populations, and Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions postdoctoral projects on microbiome-mitochondria interactions and paternally-transmitted epigenetic alterations due to heavy metal exposure.

Her influential publications encompass 'Ecosystem consequences of herbicides: the role of microbiome' (Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 2023), 'Endocrinology of thermoregulation in birds in a changing climate' (Journal of Experimental Biology, 2021), 'Towards an evolutionary theory of stress responses' (Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 2021), 'Classification of the glyphosate target enzyme (5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase) for assessing sensitivity of organisms to the herbicide' (Environmental Pollution, 2021), and 'Glyphosate-based herbicides influence antioxidants, reproductive hormones and gut microbiome but not reproduction: A long-term experiment in an avian model' (Environmental Pollution, 2020). Ruuskanen contributes editorially as Subject Editor for Oecologia and Journal of Avian Biology. Her research impacts fields of evolutionary physiology, ecotoxicology, and microbiome ecology, elucidating phenotypic plasticity and non-genetic inheritance in response to anthropogenic and climatic stressors.