The Evolution of Darwin’s Finches

This is an in-person event only. There is no live stream.

The talk will be followed by a complimentary drinks reception in our historic library, supported by The Centre for Life's Origins and Evolution, UCL.

This event is held in partnership with The Centre for Life's Origins and Evolution, Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment, UCL and The Evolutionary Journal of the Linnean Society.

In his work 'On the Origin of Species' Charles Darwin established the scientific basis for understanding how evolution occurs by natural selection. The work built on the paper introducing the theory of evolution by natural selection, co-written by Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace and presented at a Linnean Society meeting.

To explain how new species form, Darwin envisioned a three-step process involving colonization of a new area, divergence through natural selection, and the formation of a barrier to interbreeding between divergent lineages.

The challenge today is the same as the challenge for Darwin, to reconstruct evolutionary history and interpret it. In this talk, Peter and Rosemary Grant show how, by combining the fields of ecology, behaviour and genomics, they have been able to reveal the role of natural selection and hybridization in the formation of new species.

Professor Peter Grant FLS FRS and Professor Rosemary Grant FRS, renowned evolutionary biologists, have studied Darwin’s finches on the Galápagos islands since 1973. Their fieldwork is designed to understand the causes of an adaptive radiation. Their work is a blend of ecology, behaviour and genetics, collaborating with investigators to estimate phylogenetic relations among the species of finches and their relatives on the continent and in the Caribbean. They both were awarded the Linnean Society’s Darwin-Wallace Medal in 2008.

Rosemary was initially trained at the University of Edinburgh, received a PhD degree from Uppsala University, and was a Research scholar and Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University until she retired from teaching in 2008. Peter is the Class of 1877 Professor Emeritus in the same Department, having trained at Cambridge University and the University of British Columbia. Before joining Princeton in 1986, he taught at McGill University and the University of Michigan.

Image credit: kuhnmi, Flickr

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Concessions

Please buy the concession ticket if you are:

• 65 years of age, or over
• Under 26 years of age
• Currently in receipt of UK government benefit (including, but not limited to, Income Based Jobseeker's Allowance, Income-related Employment and Support Allowance, Income Support, Working Tax Credit, Child Tax Credit and Housing Benefit, and Universal Credit).
• Currently in full-time education.

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This is an in-person event at the Linnean Society of London on Piccadilly, London, only.

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