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.

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.

What determines (species) diversity and how is it affected by human actions? Biodiversity is an important property of nature, especially in the context of the change, destruction and disturbance of the environment of which we, humans, are part. Biodiversity has several functions and services ranging from providing us with food, maintaining/sustaining important biogeochemical cycles to educational and cultural values. Due to the alteration and destruction of habitat, the decline in species diversity proceeds at a rate that is considered unprecedented in geological history. This threatens our very own survival on the planet and should be one of our main concerns.

Global change is the large-scale impact of man on our world, caused by global climate change (GCC), land use cover change (LUCC), overexploitation, and large scale pollution/eutrophication of terrestrial and aquatic habitats. Thus, global change must not be taken as a synonym for global climate change alone. The Millennium Ecosystem Report and the IPCC-AR5 report showed a grim picture of the loss in virtually all ecosystems of our world. For example, most of the lowland forests have been converted to agricultural areas, while grazing, logging for timber, road and dam constructions, oil, gas, and mining prospecting provide further environmental threats. These factors greatly contribute to habitat loss and exacerbate soil erosion with hydrological implications that result in far-reaching consequences (e.g. loss of water source for residents and agricultural lands) at the regional, national, and global levels.