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Andrew MacColl

Lecturer in Evolutionary Ecology, Faculty of Medicine & Health Sciences

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Biography

B.Sc. Ecological Science, University of Edinburgh, 1990. Ph.D. University of Aberdeen, 1998. Research assistant, University of Cambridge 1990 -1994. Postdoctoral research assistant, University of Edinburgh, 1999. Postdoctoral research assistant, University of Sheffield, 2000 - 2003. Royal Society Travelling Fellow, University of British Columbia, Canada, 2004. NERC Postdoctoral Fellow and Lecturer, University of Nottingham, 2005 - present.

Research Summary

The main theme of our research is to understand the role of ecology in driving natural selection and how this can produce the divergent evolution between populations that accumulates into speciation.… read more

Selected Publications

Current Research

The main theme of our research is to understand the role of ecology in driving natural selection and how this can produce the divergent evolution between populations that accumulates into speciation. Our approach is based on the integration of theory, observation and experiment. We are interested in the relative importance of different selective agents in directing evolution. In general little is known about whether evolution is driven mainly by the abiotic environment or by ecological interactions such as competition, predation and parasitism. Classical ecology has focussed on the part played by competition between organisms in determining individual success (and hence evolution). Other ecological interactions have received less attention. Parasitism in particular has been poorly studied as a driver of evolution in host populations. Three-spined sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus) are a good model species because they are common, widely distributed and easy to keep in the lab. A great deal is known about their natural history and genetics (their genome has been sequenced). They are particularly interesting because they exhibit a great deal of phenotypic and genetic diversity between populations. The photographs below show sticklebacks from different populations on the island of North Uist, Outer Hebrides. These are all lab raised fish of a similar age (7 months). The fish in the middle (a male in breeding condition) is from an anadromous (sea-going) population. Others are from different freshwater populations that have been established on North Uist in the last 10 - 20,000 years. Note that some freshwater populations have shown considerable morphological evolution in this time. Many have lost the (eponymous) dorsal spines and/or the pelvis spines that are present in the anadromous (and probable ancestral) population, as well as exhibiting rather different overall body shapes.

five sticklebacks

Morphological variation between five populations of three-spined sticklebacks on North Uist in the Outer Hebrides (photographs by Job de Roij).

We use three-spined sticklebacks to address the following kinds of general questions:

  1. Do parasites vary between host populations in ways that are sufficiently substantial and consistent to contribute to host evolution?
  2. Is the change in selection caused by parasites important when hosts invade novel environments? This is equivalent to asking whether hosts become adapted to the parasites in their own population.
  3. What kind of host traits are affected by parasite imposed selection?
  4. Does the selection that parasites impose on their hosts result in coevolutionary feedback to the parasites, because of changes in host density or mean host phenotypes?
  5. Does coevolutionary dynamism result in arms races between parasites and hosts that can lead in fundamentally unpredictable directions?
  6. Can the interaction between hosts and parasites lead to divergence between host populations that results in reproductive isolation between those populations?

In addition to our research on natural selection and microevolution in natural populations we are interested in research lead approaches to understanding threats to species and habitats. At present this includes an investigation of the role of habitat ageing in the decline of the willow tit (Parus montanus).

School of Biology

University of Nottingham
University Park
Nottingham, NG7 2RD

telephone: +44 (0)115 9513300 (Undergraduate Enquiries)
+44 (0)115 8230311 (Postgraduate Enquiries)
fax: +44 (0)115 8230338
email: biology@nottingham.ac.uk