Our vision is that the 21th century will come to see a new synthesis in biology through the marriage of 20th century’s two major developments, the modern synthesis and the birth of molecular biology. At the Uppsala Centre for Evolution and Genomics, supported by a 10-years Linnaeus grant from the Swedish Research Council, we are prepared to take on a leading role in this process. Where Darwin and his contemporaries could only speculate about the mechanisms of heredity, and even the leading geneticists of the late 20th century could only explore the simplest and most direct links between genotypes and phenotypes in a few model organisms, we can now study complex gene-gene and gene-phenotype interactions in an increasingly wide range of organisms. This allows us to extend the evolutionary paradigm from the study of the phenotypic and molecular levels to the interactions within and between these levels: in short, to begin building an overall understanding of biology within an evolutionary framework.

We have joined forces to bring together world-class expertise in evolutionary genomics, comparative morphology, molecular evolution, evolutionary ecology and systematics. We study the natural diversity of living organisms at progressively higher levels of evolution from populations to species to phyla. We aim to investigate the molecular mechanistic basis for complex phenotypic traits such as behaviour and morphology, and for key concepts such as speciation and fitness variation. In a very real sense, the project aims to fulfil the vision of Linnaeus, which began at Uppsala and has remained strong ever since.

Integrating genomics and phenotypic processes is not only important in terms of increasing our general understanding of biology but it is also a prerequisite for sustainable development of human societies. Striking examples are that long-term persistence of living organisms depends on their ability to adapt to environmental changes and that avoidance of pandemics relies on a general understanding of the evolution of virulence and host shifts of parasites.