We are interested in the formation and maintenance of biological diversity, and the biotic and abiotic factors that contribute to these processes. This includes the investigation of large-scale climatic changes of the past and the present, and the impact of human actions on populations and species, but also the role of hybridization between and within species, and the mutational changes and rearrangements in genomes that have left their marks in the evolutionary trajectory. We focus on terrestrial mammals and birds as vertebrate model systems. However, we often extend our analyses also to the microbial commensals and pathogens of these vertebrates, and the more or less faithful evolutionary interactions with their hosts.
Congratulations!
Congratulations to Elie Tièche for successfully defending his PhD on "DNA profiling from ecosystems to courtrooms - molecular markers at the interface of ecology and forensic science" jointly supervised by PD Dr. Martin Zieger (IRM) and Prof. Dr. Gerald Heckel (IEE).
On the 25th of October 2023, Qindong Tang successfully defended her PhD dissertation entitled “Unravelling cryptic radiation and high-altitude adaptation in a migratory bird species complex” supervised by Manuel Schweizer and Gerald Heckel. All the best Dr. Tang!
On the 6th of June 2023, Xuejing Wang successfully defended her Ph.D. dissertation entitled “On the balance of drift and selection: the evolution of the Orkney vole” supervised by Gerald Heckel. All the best, Dr. Wang!
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