On the origins of sticklebacks

Dr Andrew MacColl and Dr Sara Goodacre have been awarded a major new research grant to study the evolutionary biology of three-spined sticklebacks. The project will provide fundamental insights into the process of adaptive radiation, when an ancestral lineage gives rise to many new, morphologically distinct species.

The project will compare patterns of evolution in adaptive radiations of three-spined sticklebacks in different parts of the world, and investigate the extent to which these are predictable from the structure of quantitative genetic variation (the 'G' matrix) in ancestral forms or from patterns of environmental variation.

The project, entitled ‘Multivariate evolution in replicated adaptive radiations: pattern, process and the role of the environment’, will be funded by NERC and is worth £482,328 (FEC £602,910).