Evolutionary and Ecological Physiology

led by Frank Seebacher, focuses on responses of animals to changing environments, and how these responses have evolved in space and time. Our research is integrative in that it transcends taxonomic and methodological categories.

Evolution is driven by environmental change which acts on organisms' physiology and thereby fitness. The environment is never stable, and organisms must either cope with varying physiological performance or implement some form of regulation. We are particularly interested in the interaction between phenotypic plasticity and adaptation, and the relationship between underlying physiological and molecular mechanism and their ecological and behavioural manifestation.

Keywords: phenotypic plasticity, adaptation, gene expression, behaviour, personality, climate, endothermy, ectothermy

Recent research highlights

Franklin, C. E. and Seebacher, F. 2012. Conservation Physiology: integrating physiological mechanisms with ecology and evolution to predict responses of organisms to environmental change. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 367 (edited volume).

Seebacher, F. and Franklin, C. E. 2012. Determining environmental causes of biological effects: the need for a mechanistic physiological dimension in conservation biology. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 367, 1607-1614.

Special issue on Conservation Physiology