The STN, generously funded by ESEB, aims to foster collaborations between empirical and theoretical biologists working on the evolution of dispersal and the evolution of mating systems – two important research areas that would benefit from a mutual exchange of ideas and integration.
We will also foster interdisciplinary collaborations between animal and plant biologists as well as researchers focussing on terrestrial and aquatic environments, to identify key evolutionary similarities and differences of dispersal and mating systems across organisms.
Dispersal and mating systems involve suites of physiological, morphological, behavioural and demographic traits determining individual movements and mate choice and acquisition, and are fundamental in shaping species’ evolutionary ecology and population viability. Because dispersal and mating both affect patterns of gene flow, they determine a species’ evolutionary potential by affecting maintenance of genetic and phenotypic variation linked to individuals’ fitness. Dispersal and mating systems are interconnected at multiple levels, also through their effect on demography and the relatedness structure within and among populations (e.g., inbreeding). They further influence the spatio-temporal scales of competition. In tandem, dispersal and mating system traits are caught in an eco-evolutionary feedback loop that can help explain the dispersal-mating system syndromes observed in nature. It is therefore surprising that dispersal and mating systems have largely been studied separately – creating two disparate scientific communities.
Greta Bocedi's Research Group 