Ecology

The Ecology discipline investigates how organisms interact with each other and their environments across biological scales and evolutionary time. Research spans the molecular basis of coral-algal endosymbiosis and its resilience to environmental stress, the ecological and evolutionary dynamics of insect-microbe interactions, and the behavioural and evolutionary biology of birds. Plant systematics and molecular ecology approaches address how flowering plants and lichen-forming fungi diversify and adapt to changing environments. Zoomorphological and evolutionary developmental research reconstructs how arthropod body plans and developmental programmes have changed across deep time. Together, the groups connect molecular mechanisms to organism-level adaptation and biodiversity.