Tempo and Mode in Evolution of Bird Diversity

The project will enable a world-leading Center for Biodiversity Genomics (CBG) that combines genomics and computational biology with biodiversity research, systems biology, evolutionary biology and developmental biology, to pursue four research programs about the evolution and genomic diversity of all bird species in the world.

This interdisciplinary Center will: (1) Reconstruct the tree of life for all extant bird groups to resolve the long-standing debate on the origin and later diversification of the birds worldwide. (2) Reconstruct the time-trajectories and genetic mechanisms that drove the explosive diversification after the C/T boundary. (3) Use these unprecedented data to infer demographic fluctuations of all birds over evolutionary time, model their strategies to adapt to previous climate change, and predict future diversity trends under current climate change, and (4) Extend genomic insights into developmental biology to clarify mechanisms of crucial changes in morphology that secured bauplan resilience in spite of environmental change.

Overall, the Center will pursue biodiversity genomics at an unprecedented scale and found a new interdisciplinary field of eco-evo-devo to ensure the 21th century will indeed become the century of biology in the most innovative sense possible.