Project Details
Projekt
SFB 680: Molecular Basis of Evolutionary Innovations
Subject Area
Biology
Medicine
Medicine
Term
from 2006 to 2017
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 13532522
The Collaborative Research Centre has three major themes: One group of projects is concerned with macroevolutionary innovations, i.e. those that have led to major morphological changes in whole groups of organisms. These projects deal with aspects of the evolution of insects, fish, plants and nematodes and use well-understood developmental pathways to study the genetics of changes. A second group of projects focuses on microevolutionary changes, in particular in populations that have recently colonised new areas and have started to diversify. These projects deal mainly with populations of the house mouse, with human populations and with flowering plants. The third group of projects deals with the modelling and evolutionary theory, with specific focus on the interpretation of experimental data. These projects will be carried out by theoretical physics and mathematicians with long-standing interest in biological and evolutionary problems.
They deal with the analysis of molecular networks, of regulatory DNA, of adaptation theory, as well as population genetics and modelling.
An overriding theme of all projects of the Collaborative Research Centre is the focus on changes in regulatory interactions, which have often been claimed to be major source of evolutionary innovations. With its unique combination of experimental and theoretical cross-species analysis of regulatory changes, we expect to advance substantially a quantitative understanding of the role of regulatory change in evolution. Equally important for all projects is the availability as well as the generation of genome data on a large scale. Several projects will generate microarray which allow tracing changes in regulatory networks and will use whole genome sequence comparisons to identify regulatory elements in non-coding DNA. Combined with a high-level data analysis, the Collaborative Research Centre will thus also significantly contribute to unravel the system dynamics of organisms.
Understanding the genes and molecular processes that generate biological diversity in an evolutionary context is one of the major uncharted scientific fields of the future. This has been internationally recognised and worldwide research efforts in evolutionary biology are starting to develop into this field. The Collaborative Research Centre is expected to contribute significantly to this development and will at the same time establish a new competence centre of evolutionary research in Germany.
They deal with the analysis of molecular networks, of regulatory DNA, of adaptation theory, as well as population genetics and modelling.
An overriding theme of all projects of the Collaborative Research Centre is the focus on changes in regulatory interactions, which have often been claimed to be major source of evolutionary innovations. With its unique combination of experimental and theoretical cross-species analysis of regulatory changes, we expect to advance substantially a quantitative understanding of the role of regulatory change in evolution. Equally important for all projects is the availability as well as the generation of genome data on a large scale. Several projects will generate microarray which allow tracing changes in regulatory networks and will use whole genome sequence comparisons to identify regulatory elements in non-coding DNA. Combined with a high-level data analysis, the Collaborative Research Centre will thus also significantly contribute to unravel the system dynamics of organisms.
Understanding the genes and molecular processes that generate biological diversity in an evolutionary context is one of the major uncharted scientific fields of the future. This has been internationally recognised and worldwide research efforts in evolutionary biology are starting to develop into this field. The Collaborative Research Centre is expected to contribute significantly to this development and will at the same time establish a new competence centre of evolutionary research in Germany.
DFG Programme
Collaborative Research Centres
International Connection
Netherlands
Completed projects
- A01 - The emergence of Toll signaling as major component of the dorsoventral patterning network during insect evolution (Project Heads Lynch, Jeremy A. ; Roth, Siegfried )
- A02 - Evolution of the regulatory interactions of the segmentation gene network in insects (Project Head Tautz, Diethard )
- A04 - Analysis of a new type of MADS-box gene that is involved in the evolution of land plant gametophytes (Project Head Münster, Thomas )
- A05 - The evolution of seed plant stem cell niches: the homeodomain perspective (Project Head Werr, Wolfgang )
- A06 - Evolution of the reproductive mode in nematodes (Project Head Schierenberg, Einhard )
- A09 - Macro-evolution of a gene-regulatory network in Brassicaceae (Project Head Hülskamp, Martin )
- A10 - Evolution of transcriptional regulation during the divergence of annual and perennial plant life histories (Project Head Coupland, Ph.D., George )
- A12 - The changing roles of Hox3 genes in insect evolution (Project Head Panfilio, Kristen )
- A13 - An interdisciplinary approach for understanding diversification of leaf form (Project Head Tsiantis, Miltos )
- B01 - Characterization of potential adaptive trait loci in house mouse populations (Project Head Tautz, Diethard )
- B02 - The role of regulatory changes in speciation processes of the house mouse (Project Head Harr, Bettina )
- B03 - Co-evolution of pathogen virulence and host defense (Project Head Howard, Jonathan Charles )
- B04 - Identification of genes involved in local selection and genetic adaptation in humans (Project Heads Kayser, Manfred ; Nürnberg, Peter )
- B05 - The adaptive value of pleiotropic variation: miR824 and the MADS-Box Gene Network (Project Heads Koornneef, Maarten ; de Meaux, Juliette )
- B07 - Evolutionary adaption in Daphnia to protease in hibitors in cyanobacteria (Project Head von Elert, Ph.D., Eric )
- B10 - Temperature modulation of plant immune responsiveness and fitness (Project Heads Parker, Jane E. ; Reymond, Matthieu )
- B11 - Cost and benefit of bacterial transformation (Project Head Maier, Berenike )
- B12 - The adaptive significance of small-effect mutations in yeast and plants (Project Head Beyer, Andreas )
- C01 - Evolution of gene expression (Project Heads Berg, Johannes ; Lässig, Michael )
- C02 - Adaptive evolution of microbial and viral systems (Project Head Lässig, Michael )
- C03 - Epistasis, recombination and predictability in adaptive evolution (Project Heads Krug, Joachim ; de Visser, Arjan G.M. )
- C04 - Evolutionary innovations - a case study on chromatin insulators (Project Head Wiehe, Thomas )
- C06 - Control and evolution of somite pattern formation during early development (Project Head Gerland, Ulrich )
- C07 - The role of horizontal gene transfer in life style changes and metabolic adaptations (Project Head Lercher, Martin )
- C09 - The evolution of repetitive DNA and its methylation (Project Head Tresch, Achim )
- Z01 - Administration tasks of the SFB (Project Heads Lässig, Michael ; Tautz, Diethard )
- Z02 - Bioinformatic service unit (Project Heads Beyer, Andreas ; Lässig, Michael )
Applicant Institution
Universität zu Köln
Participating University
Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf; Wageningen University
Participating Institution
Max-Planck-Institut für Pflanzenzüchtungsforschung
Spokespersons
Professor Dr. Michael Lässig; Professor Dr. Diethard Tautz, until 8/2007
