Prof. Dr. Maite Wilke Berenguer
Maite Wilke Berenguer is a theoretical probabilist by training (and by heart) who has stepped into the world of probabilistic population genetics, which has since moved into the center of her research.
Probabilistic population genetics is an area where math is inspired and motivated by biological phenomena. This can on one hand lead to exciting theoretical mathematical observations and objects and on the other hand to „applied“ results that can help shed some light on questions in theoretical biology.
Currently, the Interdisciplinary Mathematics Group mainly focuses on two aspects: dormancy and coordination. Dormancy refers to the capacity of individuals in a population to enter (and exit) a „protected“ state during which reproduction is halted – think of seeds for plants or rather cysts for some amoeba.
Coordination generally refers to the effect of evolutionary events being driven by a random environment rather than independently – an example of this is rare selection (as opposed to the classical weak selection) when selection events occur rarely, but then are of the order of magnitude of the population size. Like what might have happened to the lizards in the video below.
Natural selection in a hurricane: The lizards that won't let go
Stochastic processes
- Markov and Martingale methods
- Duality
- Scaling limits
- Coalescent theory
Current position
| 2021 - present | Juniorprofessor of Interdisciplinary Mathematics at Humboldt-Universiät zu Berlin (DE) |
Positions held
| 2018 - 2021 | Juniorprofessor for stochastics at Ruhr-University Bochum (DE) |
| 2016 - 2018 | Postdoctoral Researcher SPP 1590 “Probabilistic Structures in Evolution” at the Technische Universität Berlin (DE) |
| 2010 -2016 | Teaching and research assistant at the Technische Universität Berlin (DE) |
Academic Education
| 2010 - 2016 | Doctoral degree in Mathematics at the Technische Universität Berlin (DE) |
| 2004 - 2010 | Diploma in Mathematics at the Technische Universität Berlin (DE) |
DFG-funded projects
| 2021 - present | EXC 2046 - 'MATH+: Berlin Mathematics Research Center' |
| 2020 - present | GRK 2544 - 'Stochastic Analysis in Interaction' |
| 2015 to 2020 | GRK 2131 - 'High-dimensional Phenomena in Probability - Fluctuations and Discontinuity' |
Selected publications
- Blath J, Paul T, Tobiás A, Wilke Berenguer M. The impact of dormancy on evolutionary branching. arXiv [Preprint]. 2024 Sep. doi: 10.48550/arXiv.2209.01792.
- González Casanova A, Spanò D, Wilke-Berenguer M. The effective strength of selection in random environment. arXiv [Preprint]. 2019 Mar - revised: 2023 Feb. doi: 10.48550/arXiv.1903.12121.
- Cordero F, González Casanova A, Schweinsberg J, Wilke-Berenguer M. Lambda-coalescents arising in a population with dormancy. Electron. J. Probab. 2022;27:1-34. doi: 10.1214/22-EJP739.
- Lennon JT, den Hollander F, Wilke-Berenguer M & Blath J. Principles of seed banks and the emergence of complexity from dormancy. Nat Com. 2021;12(4807). doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-24733-1.
- Blath J, Buzzoni E, Koskela J, Wilke Berenguer M. Statistical tools for seed bank detection. Theor Popul Biol. 2020 Apr;132:1-15. doi: 10.1016/j.tpb.2020.01.001.
- Blath J, González Casanova A, Kurt N, Wilke-Berenguer M. A new coalescent for seed-bank models. Ann Appl Propab. 2016; 26(2):857-891.
- Blath J, González Casanova A, Eldon B, Kurt N, Wilke-Berenguer M. Genetic Variability Under the Seedbank Coalescent. Genetics. 2015 Jul;200(3):921-34. doi: 10.1534/genetics.115.176818.