CiTR

Have you ever wondered how scientists study the origins of our species? How are stickleback fish studied in evolutionary biology today?

Dolph Schluter is an evolutionary biologist who studies adaptive radiation — the evolution of ecological diversity in groups of organisms that are multiplying rapidly. Dolph’s research suggests that ecologically induced adaptation can result in the evolution of new species. He has worked on Darwin’s finches and helped to develop the three-spined stickleback as an experimental model for studies of adaptive radiation.

Dolph and his team investigate the ecological forces that drive the rapid origin of new species and allow them to persist, the genetic basis of species differences, and the wider ecological impacts of adaptive radiation.

His studies of sticklebacks and other species have allowed Dolph to build a model of a process that he terms ecological speciation, in which adaptation to different environments generates new species. He is the author of The Ecology of Adaptive Radiation (2000) and The Analysis of Biological Data (second edition, 2015). [ Biography taken from The Royal Society]. For more information about his research lab in the UBC department of Zoology, visit: https://www.zoology.ubc.ca/~schluter/

Audio played:

Brief introduction to Darwin’s finches produced by Fuseschool, Global education
Matthew James author of Collecting Evolution, the Galapagos expedition that vindicated Darwin, Oxford Academic
Making of the Fittest: Evolution of the Stickleback Fish — produced by HHMI BioInteractive
Last paragraph of Origin of Species, in documentary Evolution - Darwin's Struggle - BBC