Department Fish Ecology and Evolution

We study ecology, evolution and biodiversity of fishes and other aquatic organisms. We are interested in the mechanisms that drive the origins, the maintenance and the loss of genetic and functional diversity. Such diversity can be within species, between populations, between species and between larger clades and larger species assemblages. We wish to understand why different populations and species assemblages often show very  different responses to environmental variation, heterogeneity and change. This variation affects rates and mechanisms of adaptation, diversification, and extinction, and must ultimately explain the tremendous variation among organisms and ecosystems in current levels of diversity. We investigate the impacts of humans on diversity and ecosystems and we work towards providing scientifically sound foundations for biodiversity conservation and habitat restoration as well as methodology for assessing and monitoring the ecological status of ecosystems. 

Research groups

According to the research topics, Fishecology and Evolution is active in the following fields:

• Evolutionary Biodiversity Dynamics  
• Fish Genomics
• River Fish Ecology
• Theoretical evolutionary ecosystem Ecology
• Eco Evolutionary Dynamics
• Food web ecophysiology

We also host the

• Swiss Fisheries Advisory Service