Lucrezia LaccettiLocal adaptation & intraspecific variation
How within- and among-population variation builds adaptive potential, and how the geographic mosaic of biotic and abiotic pressures drives differentiation among populations.
Research
How plants adapt, persist and diversify in a changing world
Themes
Research themes
Plasticity & resilience
Whether adaptive phenotypic plasticity allows plants to colonise novel environments and buffer rapid environmental change within and across generations.
Rapid divergence & reproductive isolation
The early phases of divergence — from the build-up of reproductive barriers to ecotype formation — in rapidly evolving Mediterranean plant complexes.
Study systems
Plants I study
Brassica incana
A wild cliff-dwelling crucifer and crop relative — a model for investigating the mechanisms underlying local adaptation to extreme environmental conditions in fragmented populations across coastal and inland cliffs.
Dianthus rupicola
A Mediterranean cliff carnation whose populations are rapidly diverging — a natural laboratory for studying the insurgence of reproductive barriers in fragmented habitats and their ecological drivers.
Approach
From the field to the genome
My work spans scales and methods. I run fieldwork and population surveys across the Mediterranean, design common gardens and reciprocal experiments to disentangle plasticity from adaptation, and use population and landscape genomics to read the genetic signatures of adaptation.
Funded projects
Projects I lead
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2022 – 2023 · Principal InvestigatorPrecise monitoring of plant hybrid zones via convolutional neural networks (CNN)European Space Agency (ESA) · Project PP0085155 · Co-PIs: G. Scopece, G. Ruello
Funding & awards
Grants, prizes & awards
- 2025New Phytologist Next Generation Scientists GrantFully funded place (100 early-career plant scientists), University of Birmingham, UK · €1,000
- 2023Best Poster Presentation Award118th Congress of the Italian Botanical Society, Pisa · €500
- 2022Travel Grant117th Congress of the Italian Botanical Society, Bologna · €350
- 2021“Buon compleanno Federico II” AwardFor excellence of the cursus studiorum, University of Naples Federico II · €500
- 2021Oxford Climate Society — School of Climate ChangeGrant to attend the 8-week course
- 2019Galileo Award — Jury MemberJury member at the XIV edition of the Galileo Award for scientific dissemination, University of Padova
Mobility
Research stays
- Jan – Mar 2024INRAE Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, Agroecology Unit, Dijon (France)Host: Dr Léa Frachon
- 2023Department of Biology, University of Pisa (Italy)Host: Prof. Angelino Carta · two visiting periods
- Jan – Mar 2023Systematic & Evolutionary Botany, University of Zürich (Switzerland)Hosts: Prof. Florian P. Schiestl & Dr Léa Frachon
Networks
Selected collaborations
- 2026 –CONCLIFFS — Unravelling evolutionary changes in endemic cliff plantsAtracción de Talento, Comunidad de Madrid · PI: Martí March-Salas
- 2026 –Thermal Ecology Alliance — “Thermal strategies in a cosmopolitan plant”Global collaborative initiative
- 2025 –Genomic perspectives on domestication and feral diversity in Brassica oleraceaNational Geographic · PIs: M. Mabry & S. Abrahams
- 2025 –URBANPOLL — Parallel adaptation of plants to urban pollinatorsPRIN 2022 PNRR, Italian Ministry of University and Research · PI: Giovanni Scopece
- 2025 –Origin of the Ilha de Alcatrazes flora (Brazil)FAPESP · PI: Fabio Pinheiro
- 2023 – 2024COST Action ConservePlants (CA18201)European Cooperation in Science and Technology
Training
Education
- 2025 · Ph.D.Ph.D. in Biology — University of Naples Federico II (grade: excellent)“The role of local adaptation and habitat fragmentation in driving Mediterranean plant evolutionary trajectories”
- 2021 · M.Sc.M.Sc. in Natural Sciences — University of Naples Federico II (110/110 cum laude, honourable mention)“Pollination mechanisms in Ophrys tenthredinifera: a way-out from an evolutionary dead end?”
- 2019 · B.Sc.B.Sc. in Natural Sciences — University of Naples Federico II“Reproductive isolation mechanisms in Ophrys tenthredinifera and Ophrys incubacea (Orchidaceae)”
