Welcome to the website of the Videvall Lab! We are based at Uppsala University, Sweden.

Our research explores interactions between wild animals and their microbiomes. We use various DNA sequencing techniques and bioinformatic tools to study these microbial communities and how they are shaped by the environment and their animal hosts. We frequently study the diets and parasites of animals using DNA metabarcoding to explore their roles in gut microbiota composition and animal health and fitness. We also have exciting projects investigating gut microbes with antimicrobial resistance and to what extent host genetics modulates animal microbiomes.

We collaborate with several international colleagues on interesting projects in evolutionary biology and conservation genetics. For more information about our work, please see the Research page.

Elin is funded by the Swedish Research Council (VR), Birgitta Sintring Foundation, Magnus Bergvall’s Foundation, the Foundation for Zoological Research, and the Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development (Formas).

News

2026

Sept - Two PhD students are currently visiting our group! Emma Little, from Oregon State University, USA, and Daniel Ramírez Rodríguez-Solís from the Rey Juan Carlos University & National Museum of Natural Sciences in Spain.
Sept - David Simons started as a new postdoc in the lab! Funded by the Birgitta Sintring fellowship, he will investigate social transmission of microbiomes in wild bank voles.
Aug - Akanksha Shirish Palsole started as a new MSc student in the lab! She will work with Charlotte on wolverine microbiomes.
Aug - Elin, Pilar, Ester, and Charlotte traveled to Auckland, New Zealand to participate in ISME20! We presented our projects and organized a symposium on Microbiomes in Conservation.

July - Lola had a functional phylosymbiosis manuscript accepted in Animal Microbiome! Congrats to her and co-authors Ester, Charlotte, and Elin!
June - Elin, Gersende, Charlotte, and Ester traveled to Cornwall, UK to participate in a wild animal microbiome workshop and the inaugural ExE conference. We presented three posters and had a lot of fun talking to other wildlife microbiome researchers.

June - Elin was interviewed by Pamela Ferreti on a podcast called MVIF conversations (Microbiome Virtual International Forum). The topic was wildlife microbiomes and why they are important to study. The podcast episode is available wherever you get your podcasts (spotify link here).
June - We had a fun lab meeting & BBQ dinner at Elin’s place!

Videvall Lab June 2026 (incl. alumni Madeleine)

June - Congratulations Qianrui, who successfully defended her MSc thesis on flycatcher hybrids!
June - Our lab group invited Kasun Bodawatta from Lund University, who gave an interesting seminar and acted as opponent for Qianrui.
June - Congratulations David Simons, who was awarded a Sintring fellowship to join our lab to work on social transmission of microbiomes in wild rodents!
May - New avian microbiome paper accepted in Animal Microbiome!
Apr - Gersende Feraud started as a MSc student to work on Przewalski horse gut microbiota.
Mar - Elin was invited by Josué Martinez de la Puente to Seville, Spain, to participate in discussions on a PhD thesis on mosquito microbiota. We spent the night at the field station inside Doñana National Park and were guided around various beautiful places in Doñana.
Feb - Pilar López Hernández started a 2.5 year postdoc position in our group! She will work on the transmission of antimicrobial resistance genes in aquatic insects.
Feb - Elin, Charlotte, and Ester presented talks at Revolution 2026. Elin won best “reveting” talk! Qianrui presented a poster and won best poster!
Feb - Review paper on methodological challenges in avian microbiome research accepted in JAB !
Jan - Elin gave a popular science presentation to scholarship donor Birgitta Sintring and her family.
Jan - Elin was part of the PhD thesis evaluation committee for Lorenzo Assentato, BMC, UU, who defended his thesis on insect gut microbiota.
Jan - Ester presented a poster at the Biennial Meeting of the Spanish Society of Evolutionary Biology.
Jan - Alina Fomin started a MSc thesis project on sand lizard microbiomes, with Mette Lillie as main supervisor and Elin as co-supervisor.

2025

Dec - Elin was part of the PhD thesis evaluation committee for Shuowen Cao, SLU, who defended her thesis on salmonid gut microbiota.
Nov - Elin was appointed SciLifeLab Group Leader!
Nov - Elin gave a talk about the evolutionary hologenomics pilot project to the department.
Nov - Elin gave a talk about the upcoming reindeer project during a reindeer seminar.
Oct - Elin was awarded a 6M SEK Formas career grant!!
Oct - Ramin joined the lab as a research assistant.
Sept - Marta’s new paper about Culex pipiens microbiota is now accepted in Scientific Reports!
Sept - Qianrui joined the lab as an MSc student.
Aug - Elin, Charlotte, Ester, Madde, and Matias traveled to Barcelona to participate in ESEB2025 ! We presented five posters, one each, at the Microbiome symposium, and Elin gave a brief talk at the WAME satellite meeting. We had a lot of fun meeting new and old colleagues!