Evolution: Understanding the origins of life
We conduct fundamental research into the patterns and processes that have generated the astonishing diversity of life on Earth.
From molecules to ecosystems, research topics span the emergence of the earliest form of life, to the evolutionary aspects of environmental change, sustainability and the biodiversity crisis. Our expertise touches all the areas of the Tree of Life, including single-celled organisms, plants, animals, fungi, and the pathogens and parasites responsible for emerging infectious diseases. We apply novel interdisciplinary approaches to understanding key questions about the past and present of life, and importantly, to inform its future. Core to our advances is the use and development of state-of-the-art methods combining evolutionary genomics (bioinformatics), engineering biology, the diversity of past (palaeobiology and phylogenetics) and present life (population and behavioural ecology), and developmental biology (evo-devo).
Evolutionary research is multidisciplinary, crossing the boundaries between the Biological and Earth Sciences. The University of Bristol Palaeobiology Research Group is a cross-faculty group including staff from the school of Biological Sciences and the school of Earth Sciences. The Palaeobiology group holds an affiliation with the Evolution pillar in the School of Biological Sciences.