Evolution, Ecology and Systematics

The Master's program in Evolution, Ecology and Systematics will provide you with a broad biological background in the three main areas (Ecology, Evolution and Systematics) and will train you to become a critically thinking scientist.

During the program, you will become familiar with the many techniques and approaches that are used in the disciplines of evolution, ecology and systematics. These include modern field experiments, the use of natural history collections, mathematical modeling, data management and modern genetic/genomic methods.

The goal of the master's program is to provide students with an excellent classical research education. Moreover, the program aims to convey key skills like the ability to perform in a team, communication, organization and mediation skills, and intercultural competences.

With successful completion of the master's program, you will have not only extensive research experience that will prepare you for a PhD program including one of the graduate schools of the Faculty of Biology, but also valuable technical and communication skills that will prepare you for a career outside of academia

• Graduate School of Life Sciences Munich (LSM)
• Graduate School of Systemic Neurosciences (GSN)

The prescribed period of study is four semesters including a final master’s thesis. Requiring a total of 120 ECTS credits, the program is based on acquiring approximately 30 ECTS credits per semester. The curriculum of the master's program is based on a modular system consisting of topically related fields of research, including lectures, seminars and practical courses, with a strong emphasis on learning in the context of ongoing research projects. Modules can be individually composed according to the student’s goals and interests.

Main Courses

First semester
During the first semester, students take courses in the main areas of the program - evolution, ecology and systematic data and evidence, as well as working on their first research project (Individual Research Training, IRT1) and learning how to present (Skills I) and write up (Skills II) scientific results. In the first interdisciplinary seminar, the focus will be on Species Concepts, Adaptation and Speciation.

Second semester
In the second semester, students will move on to their second individual research project (IRT2), as well as learning how to design scientific posters (Skills III). The seminar here focuses on Global Change. In addition, students will be taking part in a statistics course and an excursion, which is mainly organised by ecology labs.

Third semester
In the third semester, students will have their last set of required courses, before moving on to their master's thesis. They will work on their final individual research project (IRT3) and the skills course here focuses on how to write a successful grant application (Skills IV). The final seminar will be on Hot Topics in Evolution, Ecology and Systematics.

Fourth semester – Master module
The master’s program culminates in a 24-Week Research Project, combined with the writing and disputation of a master’s thesis. With their master’s thesis, students demonstrate their ability to conduct independent and responsible research. Furthermore, the final module includes additional courses such as a Master´s Research Group Seminar and the completion of the Colloquia list of 20 scientific talks.

Elective courses

From the fist semester onwards, students can take 12-30 ECTS credits per semester in elective courses.

What will be taught in the EES program?

Students in the EES program specialize in a particular research area. Here are some examples of what is taught in various EES-modules:

• DNA and protein sequence evolution, molecular clock.
• Using sequence data to infer species relationships (molecular phylogenetics).
• Mathematically explicit formulation of evolutionary processes.
• Genetic variation within species, statistical tests for adaptive molecular evolution.
• Human evolution, divergence from other primates, migration patterns.
• Evolutionary developmental biology (Evo-Devo).
• Designing ecological experiments in natural or semi-natural conditions.
• Genome evolution and the evolution of sex chromosomes.
• Handling of large-scale genomic data.
• Conceptual understanding of fundamental evolutionary processes such as adaptation, speciation and sexual reproduction.
• Statistical modeling and calculating with random variables and their expectation values, variances and covariances, e.g. in quantitative genetics.
• Generalized linear models of type Poisson, logistic regression and mixed-effects models, and how these methods and concepts are applied e.g. in ecology.
• How to do all this efficiently with the software R (see http://www.r-project.org/ ).
• Principles of Bayesian and frequentistic statistics, e.g. in phylogenetics.
• Training in applying this knowledge when carrying out individual research projects.

Topical Courses (PDF, 65 KB)

Dr. Philomena Bodensteiner

The application round for the Master of Science program in Evolution, Ecology and Systematics starting in October 2025 is closed.

The next application period for the Master of Science in Evolution, Ecology and Systematics starting in October 2026 will run from mid-January to February 28, 2026.
As soon as the application period opens, you will find the link to the application portal here.

Prospecitve schedule for the admission process 2026:

• Entrance exam: calendar week 18
• Interviews: calendar weeks 23 and 24

The admission process consists of four steps. The decision regarding eligibility is made by the Master’s Admission Committee.

Admission Regulations (German version) (PDF, 96 KB)

Step 1: Requirements
You are eligible to apply for the Master of Science program in Evolution, Ecology and Systemataics if you meet all of the following requirements:

• Bachelor’s Degree (completed or in progress)
  You have successfully completed a bachelor’s degree comprising at least 180 ECTS points in biology or a related field - such as bioinformatics, (bio)chemistry, biophysics, and agricultural biology. If you have not yet finished your bachelor´s degree, you are still eligible to apply for the master´s program.

• English Language Proficiency
  You must provide proof of English proficiency at the B2 level or higher, as defined by the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), or demonstrate an equivalent level of proficiency.

Step 2: Online Application
All applicants must meet the admission requirements and successfully submit the online application along with all required documents. Applications must be submitted exclusively through our online portal (the link will be provided here during the applicaiton period).

• Applicants with a bachelor’s degree from an EU member state are evaluated based on the grade point average (GPA) of their bachelor’s degree.
  • If the GPA is 2.0* or lower, the applicant will be accepted directly to the Master's program.
  • If the GPA is higher than 2.0*, the applicant must take an Entrance Exam.

• Applicants with a bachelor’s degree from a non-EU country are required to take the Entrance Exam regardless of their GPA.

Step 3: Entrance Exam
If you fulfill the eligibility requirements and have successfully submitted your online application with all required documents and do not qualify for direct acceptance, you will be invited to take an Entrance Exam.

Following the Entrance Exam, a combined score is calculated, based on the exam result (70%) and the Bachelor’s GPA (30%). Based on this score, there are two possible outcomes:

• Applicants with a combined score of 2.3* or lower are accepted to the Master’s program.
• Applicants with a combined score higher than 2.3* and up to 3.0* will be invited to an Interview.

Step 4: Interview
If you took the Entrance Exam and your combined score is higher than 2.3* and up to 3.0* you will be invited to an Interview.

Overview admission process (PDF, 82 KB)

* According to the German grading scale, where 1.0 is the best and 4.0 is the minimum passing grade.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s Degree
  You have successfully completed a bachelor’s degree comprising at least 180 ECTS points in biology or a related field - such as bioinformatics, (bio)chemistry, biophysics, and agricultural biology. If you have not yet finished your bachelor´s degree, you are still eligible to apply for the master´s program.
• English Language Proficiency
  To be eligible for the master’s program, you must provide proof of English language proficiency at a level equivalent to at least B2, as defined by the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), or an equivalent standard.
  Acceptable proof must either explicitly state that your English proficiency is at least at the B2 CEFR level or be verifiable through recognized language assessments. All types of language tests are accepted (e.g., in-person, computer-based, paper-based, or online), and there is no restriction regarding the date the test was taken.

Proof of your proficiency in German is not required for your application to the master’s program.

List of (non-)valid language proof (PDF, 68 KB)

Documents:

The following documents (in PDF format) are required for your application to the master’s program:

• Bachelor’s degree certificate (or equivalent, if already available)

• Transcript of records, which must include the following information:
  • Your total grade point average (GPA).
  • Official explanation of your university’s grading system (including the highest possible grade and the minimum passing grade)
  • Official explanation of your university’s credit system (e.g., how many working hours correspond to one credit).

Please note: If your university uses a grading or credit system that differs from the German system, we will convert your GPA and credit points accordingly — please do not do this yourself.

If you have not yet completed your bachelor’s degree, you may still apply by submitting a current transcript of records showing all completed coursework to date.

• Proof of English language proficiency
  Documentation that your English proficiency is equivalent to at least level B2, as defined by the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), or equivalent
• Curriculum vitae (CV)
  Your CV must be written in English and is limited to a maximum of 2 pages. It should include:
  • Full name
  • Academic background
  • Work experience
  • Other relevant information

• Motivation essay
  A motivation letter written in English, with a maximum length of 600 words, addressing the following:
  • Your reasons for applying to this program, including relevant qualifications such as research and practical (lab) experience
  • Your motivation for studying at LMU and the Faculty of Biology
  • Your interest in specific research areas or research groups

Important:
All required documents must be submitted by the application deadline. According to the admission regulations, late applications or documents submitted after the deadline cannot be considered.

If you meet the admission requirements (Step 1), have successfully submitted your online application along with all required documents (Step 2), and do not qualify for direct acceptance, you will be invited to take an Entrance Exam (Step 3).

The exam is offered both online (subject to a fee) and in person (free of charge) at the Biocenter of LMU Munich. The online version involves external service fees of approximately €70 (plus any applicable country-specific taxes), payable via credit card or PayPal. There is NO option to provide any fee waivers!

Detailed information about the exam format, exact date, and applicable fees will be included in the official invitation.

Exam Details

The entrance exam is a 90-minute, English-language, multiple-choice test. It will cover topics from the following subject areas:

• Evolution
• Ecology
• Systematics

The questions are designed at the bachelor’s level, and any standard textbook used in a bachelor’s biology program can be used for preparation.
Please note: Sample questions are not available!

Expected Knowledge

We expect that beginners in the EES program are familiar with most of the contents listed below. We are aware that many applicants for the EES program lack some of this knowledge and expect that they read up on these topics before taking the EES Entrance Exam (see the list of recommended textbooks below).

Evolution

• Evolutionary Biology: Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection.
• Evidence for the evolution of organisms from common ancestors.
• Understanding the differences in the way of thinking of Cuvier, Lamarck, and Darwin, and their arguments.
• Definitions of evolution; micro-evolution; macro-evolution.
• Evolutionary Processes: Basic understanding of mutation, selection, genetic drift, recombination, migration.
• The principle underlying sexual selection and sexual conflict.
• Homology, analogy and convergent evolution: well-corroborated examples for all three conceptsl.
• Geographic scenarios for the formation of species: allopatry, parapatry, sympatry.

Ecology

Environmental factors and resources, ecosystems

• Environmental factors and resources: ecological niche (n dimensional); competition (inter, intra), stoichiometry.
• Ecology of different habitats (structure and function), biomes, biochemical cycles.
• Ecological concepts and principles (minimum population, disturbances, resilience…)

Individuals, populations, communities

• Mutualism, altruism, symbioses, commensalism.
• Metapopulation, food web interactions, key stone species, key stone ecosystems, key stone mechanisms, bottom-up top-down control.
• Biodiversity, paradox of enrichment, intermediate disturbance hypothesis, island theory.
• Understanding of ecological relations and ecological models.
• Population biology including a basic understanding of fecundity, mortality and life history traits.

Behavioural and Evolutionary ecology

• Comparative versus experimental approaches.
• Tinbergen’s four questions, proximate versus ultimate explanations.
• Optimality theory, optimal foraging, reaction norms, trade-offs, constraints.
• Evolutionary arms races, resource competition, living in groups, territoriality, sexual selection and sexual conflict, parental care and family conflict, mating systems, sex allocation, social behaviour, kin selection, cooperation, altruism and conflict, communication and signals.
• Animal communication and social structure.
• Carrying capacity, life-history strategies, trade-offs, population growth, fitness.
• Interactions of organisms with the environment (abiotic, biotic), feeding strategies: grazers, carnivorous, parasites; predator prey model, functional responses.

Systematics

• Fundamental principles of systematics, including species concepts, speciation, extinction biogeography and nomenclature.
• Species relatedness through descent from a common ancestor (“tree thinking”).
• Approaches of phylogeny reconstruction.
• Cladistics and classification concepts
• Rough overview of the phylogeny of multicellular organisms (animals, plants, fungi).
• The role of the fossil record in evolutionary biology and systematics.

Background knowledge from other fields

Molecular Genetics

• Major biological macromolecules (e.g. DNA, RNA, protein). The central dogma of molecular biology (e.g. transcription, translation). Degeneracy of the genetic code.
• DNA as the repository of genetic information; understanding the roles of DNA and RNA.
• Understanding the experiment of Meselson and Stahl; the complementary of nucleic acids on opposite complementary DNA or RNA strands that are connected via hydrogen bonds; the canonical Watson-Crick base pairing; DNA replication.
• Protein biosynthesis; redundancy of the genetic code; transcription and its regulation; translation.
• The difference between mutation and substitution; DNA repair.

Genomics

• What is a genome?
• Basic organizational structure of genomes.
• What is a typical size for a mammalian genome (in base pairs of DNA)? How many protein-coding genes are in a typical mammalian genome?
• What is a transcriptome?

Mendelian Genetics

• Mendel’s laws of segregation and independent assortment.
• What is a Mendelian trait? What are alleles?
• What is a homozygote/heterozygote? What is dominance/recessivity?
• What is a genotype/haplotype?

Quantitative Genetics

• Genetic and environmental variance.
• What is a quantitative trait?
• What are additive genetic effects? What is heritability? What is epistasis?

Cell Biology

• Basic cell biological principles including compartmentation, cell division, replication, mitosis, meiosis, etc.

Statistics and Probability Theory

• Thorough understanding and ability to apply concepts from basic probability theory such as inclusion-exclusion formula, stochastic independence, Bayes formula, binomial distributions and their approximation by normal distributions and basic combinatorics such as n! (“n factorial”) and “n choose k”.
• Expectation values / mean values, standard deviations, variances, correlations, standard errors (of sample means): How to calculate them from samples/data, how to interpret them, how to estimate them from scatter plots.
• Interpretation of histograms (also when they show densities instead of numbers), scatter plots, boxplots.
• Principles of statistical testing, including the exact meaning of the following concepts: null hypothesis, test statistic, significance level, p-value, multiple-testing correction.
• Understanding of t-tests (one- or two sided, paired or unpaired, why using Student’s t-distribution and not just the normal distribution to assess significance of the t-test), chi-square tests (goodness-of-fit and tests of homogeneity/independence) and one-factor anova: When to apply these tests, structure of their test statistics, distribution assumptions. How to use quantile tables to assess significance when applying these tests.
• For the basic non-parametric tests Wilcoxon/Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis: Underlying ideas and conditions under which these tests could or should be applied.
• Linear regression with one explanatory variable: How to make predictions based on a linear regression model, relationship between the slope and correlation, underlying assumptions in linear regression analyses and how to check whether the assumptions are fulfilled using quantile-quantile-plots.

Recommended Textbooks

Below are some examples of text books for reading up some of the contents listed above. Of course, other books or online resources may also be helpful.

• Urry, L.A., Cain, M.L., Wasserman, S.A., Minorsky, P.V., and Reece, J.B. (2016) Campell Biology (11th Edition)
• Barton, Briggs, Eisen, Goldstein, and Patel (2007) Evolution; Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press
• Futuyma (2013) Evolution (3rd ed.); Sinauer
• Begon, M., Townsend, C.A. and Harper, J.L (2005). Ecology: From Individual to Ecosystems (4th Edition), Blackwell Publishing
• Hartl and Cochrane (2017) Genetics: Analysis of Genes and Genomes (9th ed.); Jones and Bartlett
• Davies, N.B., Krebs, J.R. and West, S.A. (2012). An Introduction to Behavioural Ecology (4th Edition), Wiley-Blackwel
• Sokal, Rohlf (2009) Introduction to Biostatistics, 2nd Ed.; Dover Publications
• Freedman, Pisani, Purves (2007) Statistics, 4th Ed.; Norton & Company
• Shahbaba (2012) Biostatistics with R; Springer

After taking the Exam

Once you have completed the entrance exam, a combined score will be calculated based on your exam grade (70%) and your bachelor’s degree grade point average (30%).

• Applicants with a combined score of 2.3* or lower are accepted to the Master’s program.
• Applicants with a combined score higher than 2.93* and up to 3.0* will be invited to the final step of the admission process – the interview.

* According to the German grading scale, where 1.0 is the best and 4.0 is the minimum passing grade.

You will be invited to the final step of the admission process—the interview—if your combined score, calculated from your Entranc Exam grade (70%) and the GPA of your bachelor’s degree (30%), is higher than 2.3* or up to 3.0*.

This step consists of an interview conducted via online video call. The interview is held in English and lasts approximately 30 minutes. You will be interviewed by two faculty members from the Faculty of Biology. A formal invitation, including the exact dates and times, will be sent to you at least one week in advance.

The interviews will assess various aspects, including your academic background—both theoretical knowledge and practical experience—your ability to engage with biology-related topics and solve scientific problems, as well as your motivation to pursue the Master of Science in Evolution, Ecology and Systematics of LMU Munich.

* According to the German grading scale, where 1.0 is the best and 4.0 is the minimum passing grade.

Important Information for International Applicants

If you are not a German citizen and have neither completed your bachelor’s degree in Germany nor obtained your general university entrance qualification (“Abitur”) in Germany or from a German school abroad, you are required to apply for general admission to LMU Munich through the International Office.

This means that you must submit two separate applications:

• One to the Faculty of Biology for acceptance to the Master’s program, and
• One to the International Office for general admission to LMU.

These are independent processes with different purposes and deadlines:

• The Faculty of Biology evaluates your academic background and motivation as part of the admission process for the Master’s program.
• The International Office verifies foreign academic qualifications to determine your general eligibility to study at LMU.

Application Deadlines:

• Faculty of Biology – Admission to the Master’s Program:
  February 28
• International Office – General Admission to LMU:
  July 15

As an international applicant, you may wait to apply for general admission until you have passed the entrance exam. However, we strongly recommend reviewing the required documents early to avoid delays later in the process.

Further details on how to apply for general admission can be found on the International Office’s admission website. Please note the following:

• The International Office requires certified copies of all transcripts and certificates.
• You must complete the official application form of the International Office.
• In the form, indicate that you are applying for the Master’s program in Evolution, Ecology and Systematic
  (You are not required to submit your Letter of Acceptance from the Faculty of Biology at this stage.)

Introduction to the Program (PDF, 2.857 KB)

Exam and Study Regulations (German version) (PDF, 223 KB)

Exam and Study Regulations (English translation) (PDF, 288 KB)

Module Catalogue (PDF, 1.642 KB)

Elective Course Catalogue (PDF, 964 KB)

Individual Course and Module Selection (XLSX, 148 KB)

Guidelines (PDF, 138 KB)

Internal Examiners and Supervisors (PDF, 146 KB)

Guidelines (PDF, 127 KB)

Internal Examiners and Supervisors (PDF, 146 KB)

Deadlines (PDF, 411 KB)

Registration (Internal Master's Thesis) (PDF, 183 KB)

Application and Registration (External Master's Thesis) (PDF, 111 KB)

Application for Extenstion (PDF, 85 KB)

Last Page and Statement of Originality (PDF, 67 KB)

Colloqui List (PDF, 91 KB)

Rules for Use of AI Tools (PDF, 58 KB)