Research
My research focuses on the evolution and development of collective biological systems, such as multicellular organisms and social insect colonies. I like to take a comparative approach, aided by simple theoretical models that can generalize across a range of empirical systems.
Theme 1: Emergence of development at the origins of multicellularity
Multicellular development – the process by which multicellular organization arises, typically starting from just a single cell – is a miracle of self-organization. Multicellular development is also a product of evolution. However, we know very little about how multicellular development originated in evolution. I use models to attempt to understand how principles of multicellular development could have emerged at or around the origins of multicellularity. In doing so, I take advantage of recent empirical insights that have revolutionized our understanding of the first multicellular organisms and their unicellular ancestors.
Theme 2: Collective organization in the face of environmental variability
No organism faces a completely stable environment. As a result, developmental strategies have evolved that allow flexible responses to changing conditions. However, collectives exhibit substantial variation in whether and how they flexibly regulate their activity in response to their surroundings. I develop general frameworks to investigate this variation from the perspective of the system’s ecology: how do the environmental pressures that a collective faces shape its organization?
Theme 3: Evo-devo of collective organization
The developmental processes underlying collective organization are a product of evolution, but development may in turn also influence the course of evolution. After all, what types of (changes in) collective organization can arise over evolutionary time depends on what is developmentally feasible. To understand how development shapes the evolution of collective organization I am taking an integrative approach, combining phylogenetic analyses with developmentally-informed mathematical models.