Fishes are the most diverse group of vertebrates, are key players in aquatic ecosystems, provide a diverse set of ecosystem services, and are sensitive to environmental change. We study their ecology, evolution and conservation. We work with fish diversity from traits and genes in populations to the diversity of species assemblages, their change through time and the ecosystem consequences. We are particularly interested in understanding the evolution of endemic diversity within individual ecosystems, such as the radiations of cichlid fish in African lakes and the radiation of whitefish in the lakes around the European Alps. We are a single research group led by Ole Seehausen at the University of Bern but Ole also leads the Department Fish Ecology and Evolution at the Eawag Center for Ecology, Evolution and Biogeochemistry, Kastanienbaum, where we currently host four other research groups that are all associated with the IEE too. The work of the Eawag department is motivated by the aim to contribute to the emerging synthesis between evolutionary biology and ecosystems ecology. There we also host the Swiss Fisheries Advisory Service. Researchers in the department of vertebrates at the Natural History Museum Bern, NMBE, are also affiliated with our University division.
Conor and the team have a new publication out in Nature Communications entitled "Deconstructing the geography of human impacts on species’ natural distribution" where they address the question of how species' populations across their geographic range are constrained by multiple coincident natural and anthropogenic environmental gradients. This publication introduces the concept of shadow distributions to address this problem.
Publication
another article in a peer-reviewed journal from the same team about the importance of biodiversity baselines and connectivity in longitudinal river habitats for river restoration priority setting
Science of the Total Environment
Publikation
Ein Artikel in Aqua & Gas, der die Wichtigkeit der Artenkenntnis für Gewässerschutz betont.
Aqua & Gas
Another paper from Alexus showing that the modified pharyngeal jaw, while undoubtedly a functional innovation, at the same time also restricts the diversification of the feeding system.
In the spotlight!
Our postdoc Alexus has been chosen for a recent "scientist spotlight" in Ichthyology & Herpetology (formerly Copeia). Read her inspiring interview here...
Our postdoc Alexus has recently published a new paper in American Naturalist with her colleagues from University of California studying the functional and morphological diversification in 300 species of cichlid fishes from the East African Great Lakes and the Neotropics. While they do find similarities between the different radiations with early bursts, they also find differences such as a much faster rate of functional evolution in Lake Victoria cichlids compared to the other radiations. Read more here...
PhDone!
Congratulations to Dr. Leighton King who defended her PhD last Monday! Like Nare, she was part of the big Sinergia team that dug deep into Lake Victoria's last 20'000 years of evolution, studying remains of plankton and other organisms in sediment cores. You can read one of her papers on "Anthropogenic eutrophication drives major food web changes" by clicking here.
Congratulations to Dr. David Alila on defending his PhD on trophic ecology and community ecology of annual killifishes of the genus Nothobranchius. A big part of his work focused on testing criteria testing for ecological character displacement. He managed to satisfy 5 out of 6 criteria with his study system which only 3 other studies have achieved so far. Read more here...
Nare finished and defended her PhD last Friday, congratulations! It was about reconstructing the evolutionary history of the last 20'000 years of Lake Victoria cichlids based on fossils found in sediment cores. One of her papers was published in Nature end of last year. Read more here...
November 27, 2024
14:00 − 15:00
online
seminar series
December 4, 2024
Eawag, Kastanienbaum (LU)
December 11, 2024
December 18, 2024
Baltzerstrasse 6 3012 Bern
Phone: +41 31 684 30 09