The climate is changing not only towards warmer and wetter conditions, but we also expect greater variability and unpredictability, with more extreme environmental conditions occuring more frequently. In the long term, evolution will favour not only those that survive well and produce many offspring on average, but even more so those that have evolved strategies to achieve such consistently high survival and reproductive success independent of environmental unpredictability. In this research group we build general theoretical models that can help us predict under which conditions organisms should show these different kinds of adaptations to variable and unpredictable environments. We also use models to understand how single organisms can use several different kinds of adaptations and how these adaptations will interact with each other, perhaps over different evolutionary timescales. In addition, we develop other models of behaviour and life history decisions, like differential allocation.

Current research

Our main project is “Evolutionary responses to variable and unpredictable environments“ a “Young talented researchers” project from the Norwegian Research council. This currently includes development of models investigating evolution of epigenetic information use, plasticity and learning, insurance and bet-hedging, all in variable and unpredictable environments.

A side project we are working on is developing a solid theoretical framework for adaptive differential allocation (how parents should adjust their parental investment according to the quality of their mates).