Hybridization and Speciation | Natural History Museum Stuttgart
Research projects
Through interdisciplinary research and leveraging museum collections, we advance the understanding of changes in several levels of biodiversity in an era of rapid ecological change. Our projects focus on understanding biodiversity patterns, species persistence, and the genetic mechanisms that enable adaptation to environmental changes.
Our research projects
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What are the genomic basis of convergent evolution and how do they interact to drive phenotypic diversity?
Insights into the processes underpinning convergent evolution advance our understanding of the contributions of ancestral, introgressed, and...
How does environmental variability and exploitation impact the demography of a sardine species?
Understanding the genetic diversity of species is crucial for conservation, especially with human activities impacting the still unknown marine biodiversity. To better...
Ngan Nguyen @unsplash
How does the extent of gene flow help inferring the genes maintaining behavioral isolation?
The ‘omics’ era reveals an increasing number of species that are practically indistinguishable in morphology, ecology or even in genetics, despite...
Why are some invasive species more successful than others?
Theoretical work predicts that during a species invasion, genes from a native species often move into the genome of the invasive species, potentially facilitating its adaptation to local...
Wolfgang Hasselmann @unsplash
What can hybrid zones tell us about genetic barriers between species?
The observation of pervasive patterns of reproductive isolation across species pairs suggests that generalities, or ‘rules’, underlie speciation in all animals and plants. The first is Haldane’s rule...
Which oceanographic barriers affect genetic connectivity of coastal species?
Fisheries are essential for food security, and they preferential target coastal species causing their decline. Despite their importance, it is unclear if such coastal species are a single panmictic population, or...
Does sexual selection stabilize boundaries between species?
Hybrid zones are defined as areas where genetically differentiated groups of individuals meet, mate, and produce offspring of mixed ancestry. These zones have long been recognized...