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.
Fall-Winter 2025-2026 KLI Colloquium Series
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5881861923?omn=85945744831
Meeting ID: 588 186 1923
25 Sept 2025 (Thurs) 3-4:30 PM CET
A Dynamic Canvas Model of Butterfly and Moth Color Patterns
Richard Gawne (Nevada State Museum)
14 Oct 2025 (Tues) 3-4:30 PM CET
Vienna, the Laboratory of Modernity
Richard Cockett (The Economist)
23 Oct 2025 (Thurs) 3-4:30 PM CET
How Darwinian is Darwinian Enough? The Case of Evolution and the Origins of Life
Ludo Schoenmakers (KLI)
6 Nov (Thurs) 3-4:30 PM CET
Common Knowledge Considered as Cause and Effect of Behavioral Modernity
Ronald Planer (University of Wollongong)
20 Nov (Thurs) 3-4:30 PM CET
Rates of Evolution, Time Scaling, and the Decoupling of Micro- and Macroevolution
Thomas Hansen (University of Oslo)
RESCHEDULED: 18 Dec (Thurs) 3-4:30 PM CET
Chance, Necessity, and the Evolution of Evolvability
Cristina Villegas (KLI)
8 Jan 2026 (Thurs) 3-4:30 PM CET
Embodied Rationality: Normative and Evolutionary Foundations
Enrico Petracca (KLI)
15 Jan 2026 (Thurs) 3-4:30 PM CET
On Experimental Models of Developmental Plasticity and Evolutionary Novelty
Patricia Beldade (Lisbon University)
29 Jan 2026 (Thurs) 3-4:30 PM CET
Jan Baedke (Ruhr University Bochum)
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.

