Why are organisms so good at evolving?

– and can they become even better?

Life has an extraordinary capacity to adapt, innovate and diversify. Our aim is to understand the causes and consequences of variation in this capacity – evolvability. The evolvability of organisms depends on how they work. We focus on how development and behaviour enable, direct and promote adaptation and diversification.

Many of our projects involve Mediterranean wall lizards. The lizards’ rapid diversification in colouration and their persistence on tiny islets have puzzled naturalists since the 19th century. Recent theory and methods now allow us to understand why wall lizards are so successful, and to establish the causes of innovation, convergence, and the existence of hypervariable clades.

We also run projects on other lizards, water fleas, and green algae. The latter are particularly useful for experiments on the evolution of evolvability. To learn more about our research, check out these ongoing projects:

• Plasticity and Evolution

Does evolution proceed where developmental plasticity leads?

• Evo-devo of Colour Patterns

Uncovering how new colour patterns arise using developmental genetics and mathematical modeling

• Hybridization – from Behaviour to Evolution

Can mating between lineages promote adaptation and fuel diversification?

• Evolution on Repeat

Understanding convergent evolution of complex phenotypes through the lens of development

• Population Resilience

Linking ecology, evolution and genetics to explain why some small populations persist while others fail

• Evolution of Evolvability

Employing green algae to establish if organisms can become better at evolving

• Philosophy and Evolutionary Theory

Improving our science by scrutinizing concepts, theories and models