Evolution and Ecology Program (EEP)

Evolution is the architect and custodian of all biological diversity. Insights about the dynamics of adaptation are thus indispensable for understanding the past, present, and future of Earth’s ecosystems. If human interventions directed at responsible conservation and sustainable exploitation are to be successful, they must account for the evolutionary dimensions of anthropogenic environmental change.

Responding to this increasingly recognized need, IIASA’s Evolution and Ecology Program analyzes and forecasts how evolutionary dynamics shape ecological populations and communities. Specific challenges addressed range from assessing and managing human-induced evolutionary changes in exploited fish stocks, to fostering cooperation in groups of unrelated agents, to understanding and forecasting the impact of environmental disturbances on the structure and functioning of food webs.

Together with its network of international collaborators, the Program is driving the development and application of adaptive dynamics theory, a framework recognized by many as the most versatile tool currently available for linking ecological and evolutionary consequences of environmental change.

Based on a two-pronged attack through applied and methodological research, the Program establishes bridges between fundamental and policy-oriented, theoretical and empirical, biological and mathematical, and analytical and numerical approaches to the systems analysis of ecological and evolutionary change.

Applicants are encouraged to contact the program representative, Ulf Dieckmann for any scientific related questions. For more information about the EEP program check the web site.

Responsible for this page: Tanja Huber
Last updated: 22 Sep 2011