d Sophie Buysse

Sophie Buysse

Hi there! I'm Sophie (she/her), a PhD Candidate at Michigan State University. I am a quantitative and population geneticist motivated by understanding adaptation to changing climates.

I'm co-advised by Emily Josephs and Jeff Conner in the Plant Biology Department and the Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior Program. The main themes in my dissertation work are phenotypic plasticity, adaptation to changing climates, and the interaction of evolutionary forces in trait loss. My dissertation uses locally adapted populations of A. thaliana to explore genetic differentiation for phenotypic platicity in response to heat and drought, examine if plasticity in these populations is adaptive, and identify the genetic loci underlying plasticity. Through this project, I have gained invaluable skills in experiment planning, statistical analysis, and mentoring.

I expect to graduate in Spring 2026 and am searching for a post-doc! I am excited to apply the skills learned through my PhD in natural systems.

Research

I research plant evolution by using the model organism Arabidopsis thaliana. I'm particularly interested in adaptation to changing climates. My dissertation research includes two main projects.

selfie of Sophie in front of a growth chamber filled with flats and pots

The role of plasticity in adaptation to climate change

I am fascinated by the ability of plants to respond to their environment and adapt to stressful environments. In this project, I am investigating the role of phenotypic plasticity in adpatation to heat and drought by incorporating within and between population variation in plasticity, selection gradients for plasticity, and quantitative trait loci (QTL) analysis to start to uncover the genetic architecture of plasticity for multiple traits. This project is composed of chamber common gardens where I grew native genotypes and recombinant inbred lines of A. thaliana in simulated current and future environments while measuring a suite of traits related to phenology, drought response, and fitness. I aim to answer three main questions:
1. Is there population differentiation for plasticity between locally adapted populations from Sweden and Italy? (so far, yes for some traits but not others)
2. Is plasticity adaptive in my simulated future environment? (so far, it depends on the trait and the population)
3. Do recombinant inbred lines, which are all a combination of Sweden and Italy genes, have greater fitness than their parents indicating gene flow could be beneficial (yes! 464/527 have higher fitness than the Swedish parent and 93/527 have greater fitness than the Italian parent)
4. Are QTL underlying drought response traits and fitness similar in the current and future environments? Can we identify QTL for plasticity? (for flowering time, we identify both QTL unique to each treatment and QTL for flowering time plasticity)

The results from this project will increase our knowledge of adaptive plasticity and the genetic loci underlying plasticity. They will also be applicable in understanding the effect of assisted migration and predicting population presistence to changing climates. To grow enough plants, this project required growing and phenotyping ~3,500 plants over four blocks. The final block was completed in May 2025! I am very thankful to the undergraduate researchers who made this project possible and am excited for results to come soon.

Check out the work I've presented thus far on this project:

Evolution 2022 Poster - pilot study results
Evolution 2023 Poster - first results from RILs
I presented results on leaf number plasticity at Evolution 2025 on June 22, 2025.

image of short stamens; credit to Frances Whalen

Constraint of Trait Loss

Traits are maintained through a balance of genetic drift and selection. When traits have no impact on fitness, we expect them to be lost through drift, selection against the trait, or selection against the trait mediated by another, genetically correlated trait. In this project, I investigated the roles of genetic drift and selection in short stamen loss in A. thaliana. Previous evidence shows that short stamens do not contribute to fitness in A. thaliana, but they have nonetheless been retained. I investigated why in this collaborative project that used populations along an elevation gradient in the Spanish Pyrenees. I also used genome-wide association studies to look for loci associated with short stamen number.

This manuscript recently came out in Evolution . You can find it here.

Teaching

Scientific literacy is a critical skill for navigating our world. Whether through media or informal conversations, we are confronted with scenarios that require scientific literacy skills such as identifying valid arguments, interpreting data, and justifying conclusions. These skills are transferable outside the classroom and are appropriate goals for teaching introductory biology classes where students have diverse backgrounds and diverse career goals. My own teaching-as-research project and the work of others has shown that we struggle to teach students science literacy skills (Gormally et al. 2012). Thus, my teaching aims to center science literacy through (1) cooperative learning, (2) inquiry, and (3) reflection focused on keeping content relevant to real world applications and scenarios where students may need these skills in their everyday lives and future careers. You can read my full teaching philosophy here and a short essay on my experiences teaching here from when I was highlighed as the MSU Graduate Educator of the Month in November 2025.

As preparation for my role as an educator, I completed the Certificate in College Teaching through the Graduate School at MSU in December 2024. You can find a link to my portfolio below, which is the culmination of multiple years of courses, workshops, and teaching experiences:

Certificate In College Teaching Portfolio

image of Sophie in front of a scientific poster with a model of the project

Teaching as research

As a Future Academic Scholar in Teaching at MSU, I designed and implemented a teaching-as-research project that used a modelling activity in an introductory biology lab to emphasize to students that science and society are connected. A common goal of introductory biology labs is to increase student science literacy. My project focused on the important question: how do models influence how students understsand the connections between science and society? Students took science literacy surveys at the beginning and end of the semester, and half of the students completed a modelling activity during the semester. Ultimately, I found that there was no increase in science literacy for students, whether they completed the modelling activity or not. These results indicate the important role of assessing science literacy and adjusting our instruction to make sure we accomplish our teaching goals.

You can find out more about this project under Competency 5 in my Certificate In College Teaching or check out this poster I presented at Botany and the Society for the Advancement of Biology Education Research in Summer 2024.

image of Tori in front of a scientific poster

Mentoring

My approach to mentoring is that each student has individualized needs as a mentee; my role is to teach mentees the skills they need to design and conduct effective experiments while increasing confidence in their problem solving and critical thinking skills.

Mentored students with independent projects include: Basia Love* (MSU Undergrad, 2024-2025), Evan Adamski (MSU Undergrad, Spring 2024), Athena Dila (Plant Genomics REU student, 2023), Tori Nicholes* (KBS REU student, 2022 - pictured with her poster; she is now a Ph.D. student at West Virginia University), and Trevor Markwood (MSU Undergrad, 2022-2023). I also mentor additional students who assist with my research projects but do not have independent projects and interact with other Josephs Lab undergraduates.
*first author or coauthor on a manuscript in review

CV

Check out my CV here
In short, my resarch skills include:

  • Growing and phenotyping plants
  • Bioinformatics and statistical analysis
  • Teaching with evidence-based pedagogy
  • Communicating research outcomes
  • Outreach and Mentoring
  • Drinking Tea

Contact Me

The best way to contact me is to send me an email