AG Evolutionary Biology and Molecular Ecology (Christian Sturmbauer)

An important topic in the research of the working group focusses on patterns of speciation in adaptive radiations, which are addressed by linking genomic data sets with the phenotypic expression of critical adaptive traits in the model system of East African cichlids. The first step is to reconstruct the temporal and functional sequence of species diversification, which serves as a basis for understanding adaptive evolutionary processes. The second step towards a better understanding of the link between adaptive processes and speciation concerns the key adaptations that enable splitting, but also further cohabitation. To this end, we utilise the fact that in all three large East African lakes, each with hundreds of cichlid species, ecological equivalents with sometimes astonishingly similar morphologies have evolved in parallel and independently of each other. Christian Sturmbauer and Stephan Koblmüller are currently working on related projects.

The second topic of our research is the recording and documentation of domestic biodiversity, as well as the biogeographical patterns of population and species structuring in Austria and the Palaearctic region, which are characterised or modified in the long term by the ice ages, but in the short term by climate change. In this regard, a series of projects are underway under the direction of Steven Weiss with freshwater fish, especially Eurasian salmonids. Stephan Koblmüller and Christian Sturmbauer are also heavily involved in the ABOL (Austrian Barcode of Life) project initiative, where the entire domestic biodiversity is to be recorded using referenced barcode sequences.

The third topic concerns biodiversity and natural product research on often very small but ecologically important soil organisms such as mites, weavers and millipedes. Günther Raspotnig, Sylvia Schäffer, Julia Baumann and Tobias Pflingstl are currently working on related projects. Here too, comparative morphological, (bio)chemical and molecular biological methods are being combined ("integrative taxonomy") in order to gain a better understanding of the diversity and evolution of these animal groups, which are still very little studied.