Biodiversity

The ABE programme clearly fits the scope of the area VIDA and we study animal biodiversity from a phylogenetic perspective, aiming at an increased knowledge of the Tree of Life. Our scientific interests cover from the origin and distribution of biodiversity (from morphological, genetic, ecological and functional standpoints), the systematics of selected groups, diversification and speciation, hybridisation, biogeography and evolutionary ecology, to phylogenetic methods. Apart from studying the systematics and phylogenetic relationships of different groups of animals, we also investigate the processes that generated this diversity. We study a wide variety of organisms, including mammals, reptiles, amphibians, butterflies and beetles, as well as many approaches, from fieldwork and analysis of morphology, to the study of genetic and genomic data.