Funded PhD projects are often available through Doctoral Training Partnerships, advertised in the autumn for starts in October the following year.

For informal enquiries contact Anders directly.

My research is focussed on understanding the evolutionary history of organisms, primarily animals. By studying genetic diversity within and between species, we can learn about the evolutionary processes that have shaped that diversity. Ancient and historical DNA furthermore gives opportunities to directly observe past diversity. Key areas of research focus include:

Red foxes: Unlike many of its canid relatives, the red fox is not struggling in the face of human expansions—to the contrary, it is thriving. Second to humans, the red fox is likely the land mammal with the largest natural distribution, living in a wide range of environments across most of the northern hemisphere, and recently is even finding ways of life in cities and other human-dominated environments. Little is known about the evolutionary history underlying the success of the red fox, including the extent to which it is driven by genetic adaptation to various local environments. We are studying the global diversity and history of this successful species, and also sequencing hundreds of fox genomes from rural and urban environments across the UK.

Red squirrels: Red squirrels in Britain are a textbook example of a species declining under the pressure of an invasive relative—the grey squirrel, introduced from North America in the late 1800s. But even before the grey squirrel was introduced, red squirrels in Britain were struggling due to hunting and deforestation. However, already since the late 1700s, people have been bringing in new red squirrels to Britain from continental Europe in attempts to help local populations, in an unusually long-running example of what is now referred to as genetic rescue. What effects these dramatic pressures and rescue efforts have had are largely unknown, but we aim to uncover this by studying historical red squirrel genomes from the past few hundred years.

Dogs and wolves: The dog was the first animal that entered a domestic relationship with humans, way back during the Ice Age. But where in the world dogs come from, and how they became the most ubiquitous human companion animal, remains a scientific mystery. Since then, dogs have evolved alongside humans as we have embarked on large-scale migrations and lifestyle transitions. The ancestor of dogs, the grey wolf, has an interesting evolutionary history in its own right, being one of the large carnivores that survived the dramatic climate change of the last Ice Age. Today, however, wolves are struggling under human pressures in many regions. Key publications:

- Bergström et al. Genomic history of early dogs in Europe. Nature, 2026 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10112-7

- Bergström et al. Grey wolf genomic history reveals a dual ancestry of dogs. Nature, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-04824-9

- Bergström et al. Origins and genetic legacy of prehistoric dogs. Science, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aba9572

- Girdland-Flink, Bergström et al. Gray wolves in an anthropogenic context on a small island in prehistoric Scandinavia. PNAS, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2421759122

Humans: Where do we come from as a species, how did we spread so widely and quickly around the world, how has our genetic diversity been shaped by various cultural developments such as the advent of agriculture? Genomics is joining archaeology, linguistics and other research fields to help unravel the rich and complex history of our own species, and also provides a background framework for medical genetics. Key publications:

- Bergström et al. Origins of modern human ancestry. Nature, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03244-5

- Bergström et al. Insights into human genetic variation and population history from 929 diverse genomes. Science, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aay5012

- Bergström et al. A Neolithic expansion, but strong genetic structure, in the independent history of New Guinea. Science, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aan3842