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We study how the interplay of interactions determines evolutionary processes. Biodiversity is a product of evolutionary history. All organisms interact with the abiotic and biotic environment and these interactions are major drivers of evolutionary changes, which have resulted in the biodiversity as observed today. Over the last decades, much progress has been made in understanding how interactions determine evolutionary processes. However, it has also become increasingly clear that multiple interactions can synergistically constrain or drive organismal evolution. For instance, changes in the abiotic and biotic environment are often correlated, and particular characters often serve multiple functions.

It is therefore critical that evolution is considered in a “whole-organism- context”, taking multiple interactions into account. The aimof our group Understanding Evolution is to study how the interplay of interactions determines evolutionary processes. We are in a particularly strong position to launch this research program, as the researchers of our group combine a unique set of different, but highly complementary skills and expertise.

Our main research priorities for the next five years are to

1. unravel evolutionary shifts of interactions
2. investigate the genetic background of these shifts, and
3. predict the fate of biodiversity in the light of altering interactions due to global change.

To answer these questions we integrate a combination of phylogenetic, ecological, genomic, transcriptomic, morphological, and anatomical approaches and apply these to several target taxa in flowering plants and fungi. Therefore our research includes comparative descriptive and experimental tools, and implements both field- and collection-based research.

• Biodiversity discovery

o know Earth’s species is essential for measuring and preserving biodiversity, testing biological theories, understanding ecosystem functioning, and for human welfare. Describing yet unexplored species and clarifying the circum­scription and taxonomy of known species are main challenges towards comprehensive species inventories. The group Next Generation Biodiversity Discovery will tackle these challenges and address important scientific and societal questions in the field of biodiversity discovery, by combining biodiversity inventories and collection-based taxonomy with analyses of biodiversity patterns. The methods used include e-taxonomy, morphological taxonomy, phylogenetics, DNA-(meta)barcoding and biogeographic analyses. Tangible output comprises scientific publications, identification tools, floras, multi-entry keys, online databases, and outreach to the wider public.

• Marine biodiversity

By integrating molecular, ecological, and palaeoecological time series across spatial scales we elucidate the response of marine organisms to past, present and future environmental change. We live amid a global wave of anthropogenically driven biodiversity loss: species, population extirpations and, critically, declines in local species abundances. Additionally, current extinction rates are higher than would be expected from the fossil record. Global effects of increased CO2 in the atmosphere are translated not only in higher temperatures, but also in ocean acidification in oceans and seas. This is predicted to have serious implications on the capacity of organisms to grow carbonate skeletons, as well as on surface water productivity and the nitrogen cycle.

• Endless forms