Anna Maria Johansson

I am a researcher with main interest in population genetics, but I find all areas of genetics interesting.

I am head of the division of Genetics, Breeding, Biochemistry and Bioinformatics since January 2025.   

I am involved in several research projects about genetic diversity and population structure in Swedish breeds of chicken, sheep, cattle, goat, and pig as well as in Bolivian llamas and alpacas. I have collaborations about ancient DNA in sheep and cattle. In sheep I am also investigating wool colour and in goat I am invesitgating milk traits. I also have a project about gonadal hypoplasia (a fertility problem) in cattle. In addition i am involved in a project about meat quality in pigs.

I am course leader and examiner of the online course Basic Animal Breeding nad Genetics.

I am also teaching in otehr courses, mainly about population genetics, evolution, sheep breeding, programming in R.

I like to supervise master theses in topics related to my research projects.

I have been main supervisor of three PhD students and assistant supervisor of five students that have defended their theses. I am currently assistant supervisor for two PhD students.

I have supervised more than 30 degree projects.

Supervised PhD students, completed:

Abiye Shenkut Abebe, 2022 (assistant supervisor)

Hadeer Abo Shady, 2020 (assistant supervisor)

Vinicius da Silva, 2020 (main supervisor)

Christina Rochus, 2017 (main supervisor)

Merina Shrestha, 2017 (main supervisor since August 2015)

Xiaowei Mao,  2016 (assistant supervisor)

Emebet Moreda, 2014 (assistant supervisor)

Muhammad Ahsan, 2014 (assistant supervisor)

PhD students at present

Pilar Roman, planned to defend her thesis in 2027 (assistant supervisor)

Qasim Mashood, planned to defend his thesis in 2026 (assistant supervisor)

Supervised postdocs

Ajith Harish, 2020-2022

Sofia Nyman, 2018-2021

• MSc in Biology, Lund university, 2002
• PhD in Genetics, Lund university, 2007
• Postdoc at SLU 2007-2011
• Researcher at SLU 2012-
• Director of undergraduate studies Feb 2012-Aug 2013, Jul 2017-Dec 2024
• associate professor in population genetics 2015

Johnsson M, Johansson AM. 2025. Genome of the extinct Gotland cattle breed. BMC Genomics. 2025 26(1), 1093. doi: 10.1186/s12864-025-12382-3

Harish A, Lopes Pinto FA, Eriksson S, Johansson AM. 2024. Genetic diversity and recent ancestry based on whole-genome sequencing of endangered Swedish cattle breeds. BMC Genomics 25, 89 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12864-024-09959-9

Eriksson S, Strandberg E, Johansson AM. 2023. Changes in genomic inbreeding and diversity over half a century in Swedish Red and Swedish Holstein dairy cattle. Journal of Animal Breeding and Genetics 140 (3), 295-303. https://doi.org/10.1111/jbg.12758

Johansson M, Lundh Å, Johansson AM. 2023. Relation between αs1-casein, genotype and quality traits of milk from Swedish dairy goats. Journal of Dairy Sciences 106 (8): 5582-5592. https://doi.org/10.3168/jds.2022-22857

Rochus CM, Jonas E, Johansson AM. 2020. Population structure of five native sheep breeds of Sweden estimated with high density SNP genotypes. BMC Genetics 21:27. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12863-020-0827-8 

Johansson AM, Pettersson ME, Siegel PB, Carlborg Ö. 2010. Genome-wide effects of long-term divergent selection. PLoS Genetics 6(11): e1001188. doi: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1001188