KLI Colloquia are invited research talks of about an hour followed by 30 min discussion. The talks are held in English, open to the public, and offered in hybrid format.
Join via Zoom:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5881861923?omn=85945744831
Meeting ID: 588 186 1923
Spring-Summer 2026 KLI Colloquium Series
12 March 2026 (Thurs) 3-4:30 PM CET
What Is Biological Modality, and What Has It Got to Do With Psychology?
Carrie Figdor (University of Iowa)
26 March 2026 (Thurs) 3-4:30 PM CET
The Science of an Evolutionary Transition in Humans
Tim Waring (University of Maine)
9 April 2026 (Thurs) 3-4:30 PM CET
Hierarchies and Power in Primatology and Their Populist Appropriation
Rebekka Hufendiek (Ulm University)
16 April 2026 (Thurs) 3-4:30 PM CET
A Metaphysics for Dialectical Biology
Denis Walsh (University of Toronto)
30 April 2026 (Thurs) 3-4:30 PM CET
What's in a Trait? Reconceptualizing Neurodevelopmental Timing by Seizing Insights From Philosophy
Isabella Sarto-Jackson (KLI)
7 May 2026 (Thurs) 3-4:30 PM CET
The Evolutionary Trajectory of Human Hippocampal-Cortical Interactions
Daniel Reznik (Max Planck Society)
21 May 2026 (Thurs) 3-4:30 PM CET
Why Directionality Emerged in Multicellular Differentiation
Somya Mani (KLI)
28 May 2026 (Thurs) 3-4:30 PM CET
The Interplay of Tissue Mechanics and Gene Regulatory Networks in the Evolution of Morphogenesis
James DiFrisco (Francis Crick Institute)
11 June 2026 (Thurs) 3-4:30 PM CET
Brave Genomes: Genome Plasticity in the Face of Environmental Challenge
Silvia Bulgheresi (University of Vienna)
25 June 2026 (Thurs) 3-4:30 PM CET
Anne LeMaitre (KLI)
KLI Colloquia 2014 – 2026
Event Details
Picture Gallery
Evolutionary Developmental Biology (EDB) represents a new research agenda that unites evolutionary and developmental approaches to organismal form. In order to succeed, however, this resynthesis of development and evolution must include the environmental effects and physiological (endocrine / homeodynamic) processes that are part of organismal development. Ecology has been slow to embrace this new synthesis. Comparative physiology has been even slower, but there have been calls from funding agencies and leading researchers for an evolutionary comparative physiology. Similarly, with few exceptions, developmental biologists have been slow to embrace environmental and ecological-populational thinking in their approaches, either to development or to EDB. Very little attention has been given to physiological and metabolic processes that could mediate interactions between environ-ment, development, and evolution during ontogenetic and phylogenetic change. It is our contention that it may be environmental and physiological theories, emphasizing dynamic systems and equilibrium properties, that will contribute the next, significant chapter to formulating a true synthesis of evolution, indeed to completing the modern synthesis. The workshop intends to redress the omissions described above by bringing together a group of leading researchers from quite disparate fields of biology, and working on quite different systems, to examine the interface between environment, development, and evolution, in order to formulate what Scott Gilbert in a recent paper calls "eco-devo," but could be called "eco-evo-devo.” The workshop shall show the dynamic interaction between development and other physiological sciences, as well as how environmental signals are translated into change in biological systems. Because the topic requires a hierarchical integration of biological organization, the workshop includes approaches ranging from the molecular/genetic to the population level, and shows how embryonic development relates to life-history evolution, adapt-ation, and responses to environmental factors.

