Department Aquatic Ecology

Evolutionary Ecology

The Evolutionary Ecology group is also part of the Institute of Integrative Biology (IBZ) and the Department of Environmental Systems Science (D-USYS) at ETH Zürich. An important research focus of our group is the study of insect host-parasite interactions. In particular, we are interested in how such interactions are modified by endosymbiotic bacteria that protect insects against natural enemies like parasitic wasps. Some members of our group also work in the field of conservation genetics. We investigate how man-made fragmentation of streams and rivers affects the genetic population structure of aquatic animals (fish and crayfish), and we provide these informations to the responsible authorities to support conservation efforts for endangered native crayfish.

Additional information is availabe on our group page.

Group Leader

Current Projects

A multi phase research program by Eawag and the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN)
Together with climate change, biodiversity loss is the most pressing environmental crisis of our time. The "Translational Centre Biodiversity Conservation" bundles knowledge and makes it generally available. In collaboration with key Swiss stakeholders, the Centre identifies topics for knowledge exchange, translation, and synthesis, and communicates and distributes the resulting synthesis products.
Understanding how facultative endosymbiotic bacteria that increase host resistance shape coevolution between aphid hosts and their hymenopteran parasitoids.
Population genetics approaches to investigate how the massive level of habitat fragmentation affects population connectivity of crayfish, and if technical countermeasures effectively mitigate the negative effects of fragmentation.