Jan HackelAssociate Professor

I teach on the MSc courses "Plant diversity and evolution – a global perspective" and "Biodiversity: Patterns and processes".

My research focuses on how distribution patterns of plants and fungi emerge through evolutionary processes.

Selected publications (full list on Google Scholar):

• Grass Phylogeny Working Group III (2025): A nuclear phylogenomic tree of grasses (Poaceae) recovers current classification despite gene tree incongruence. New Phytologist, 245: 818-834. https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.20263.
• Hackel J., Henkel T.W.,  Moreau P.-A., Courtecuisse R., Buyck B., De Crop E., Verbeken A., Neves M.A., Wartchow F., Sà M., Louisanna E., Schimann H., Garnica S., Manzi S., Roy M. (2022): Biogeographic history of a large clade of ectomycorrhizal fungi, the Russulaceae, in the Neotropics and adjacent regions. New Phytologist 236: 698-713. https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.18365
• Hackel J., Sanmartín I. (2021): Modelling the tempo and mode of lineage dispersal. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 36: 1102–1112. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2021.07.007
• Hackel J., Vorontsova M.S., Nanjarisoa O.P., Hall R., Razanatsoa J., Malakasi P., Besnard G. (2018): Grass diversification in Madagascar: In situ radiation of two large C3 shade clades and support for a Miocene to Pliocene origin of C4 grassy biomes. Journal of Biogeography 45: 750-761. https://doi.org/10.1111/jbi.13147

I serve as associate editor with the Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society.

Popular science articles from my time at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew:

• Climbing Madagascar's highest mountain II (2022)
• Fungi in the Neotropics: on the move for millions of years (2022)
• Maize’s missing cousins: Shedding light on photosynthesis (2019)