Research fields
What are the processes driving the enormous diversity of animal species on earth? When and how do new species emerge? How is biodiversity distributed on regional and global scales, and how are changes in biodiversity related to local, regional, and global environmental changes? These questions are being studied by the Evolutionary Biology group in various parts of the world, ranging from the heights of the Tibetan plateau, the glaciers of Patagonia, river plains in China, and lakes in the African Rift Valley to the coral reefs in the Caribbean.
Understanding the processes generating biodiversity and the factors responsible for changes in biodiversity in space and time are of fundamental importance for evolutionary biologists, ecologists and biogeographers. These are also questions of main interest for the Evolutionary Biology group. The group uses a set of model taxa, mainly invertebrate taxa such as mollusks, crabs and corals, but also vertebrate groups such as fish and birds to study evolutionary changes in various places on earth.
Based on a research strategy that explicitly addresses spatial and temporal aspects of evolution on various scales, the group studies evolutionary events ranging from Miocene to Holocene times and from continent-wide to local scales. Besides species-driven questions, the Evolutionary Biology group also studies theoretical aspects of evolution related to molecular clock approaches and modeling of distribution of biodiversity on various levels.
Coral reef dynamics and evolution