On 7th November 2024, the KLI hosted a symposium to launch Evolution Evolving, a book authored by KLI member Kevin Lala (University of St. Andrews), along with Tobias Uller (Lund University), Nathalie Feiner (Lund University), Marcus Feldman (Stanford University) and Scott Gilbert (Swarthmore College), and published by Princeton University Press. Evolution Evolving highlights the role of developmental processes in evolution, drawing upon new findings in areas such as evo-devo, epigenetics and symbiosis. The title of the book, according to the authors, alludes both to the evolution of the evolutionary process over time, as well as to the fact that evolutionary theory is evolving, which this book hopes to make a contribution towards. (Click on title to read more.)

Online Colloquium, 14 November, 3.00 pm. Join us via Zoom!

The 42nd Altenberg Workshop in Theoretical Biology was held at the KLI from 8th to 11th October 2024. The topic for this edition, organised by Joeri Witteveen and Federica Bocchi of the University of Copenhagen, was "Aims, Norms, and Values in Scientific Classification for Biodiversity Conservation". The workshop brought together 14 scholars from Australia, Austria, Canada, Denmark, India, New Zealand, Spain, South Africa, UK, and USA, spanning the biological sciences, social sciences and humanities, and working on aspects of classification and categorization in taxonomy, biodiversity science and conservation biology. The workshop was co-funded by the KLI and the research project “Tackling the Conservationist’s Dilemma,” sponsored by the Independent Research Fund, Denmark. (Click on title to read more.)

Isabella Sarto-Jackson was featured in the Austrian national newspaper 'Die Presse', in an article titled, “Missbrauch und Stress verändern das junge Gehirn” (translation: abuse and stress change the young brain), in the section 'Neurobiologie'. In this article by Cornelia Grobner, which was posted on 19 October 2024, Isabella explains how negative experiences in early childhood and adolescence can deeply impact the growth and development of the brain. (Click on title to read more.)

In a recent paper published in PNAS, co-leads Barbara Fischer (KLI & University of Vienna) along with Katharina Pink (Medical University of Vienna) and team reported that female Japanese macaques, despite having the same pelvis-to-fetal-head ratio as female humans, do not suffer the same birth complications as human mothers. This is supported by evidence from a long-term demographic data showing zero maternal mortality linked to childbirth in these non-human primates. This study contributes to our current understanding of the interplay between pelvic morphology and birth dynamics and provides further insights into how to provide better care for human mothers to lessen complications during physiological births. The study made it to the cover of the journal.

The 42nd Altenberg Workshop in Theoretical Biology with the theme "Aims, Norms, and Values in Scientific Classification for Biodiversity Conservation" is held at the KLI from 8th-11th October 2024. This workshop is organized by Joeri Witteveen & Federica Bocchi (University of Copenhagen) The aim of this workshop is to map, discuss and evaluate different perspectives on the role of values in species classification at the interface with conservation policy and practice.

Martin Schmid, along with co-authors Gertrud Haidvogl, Severin Hohensinner published an article titled ‘Waterway, power plant chain, river landscape: A short environmental history of the Danube’ in the magazine Geographic Round-view - Issue 10/2024 (October). This article is mainly targeted at Class level 11 (until 13th School year) The article (in Deutsch) tells the environmental history of the Danube river, its genesis, its former floodplains that are now being intensively built up, and basic knowledge for more sustainable use of the river in the light of current climate change.

We are very happy to welcome our new Writing-Up Fellow Wiktor Rorot to the KLI! Wiktor comes from a background in cognitive science and philosophy, and is currently a PhD student at the Interdisciplinary Doctoral School, University of Warsaw. He will be working on his project “Scale-Free Communication? An investigation of the use of the concept ‘communication’ in biology and cognitive sciences”, at the KLI from 1 Sep 2024, to 31 Mar 2025. Here’s wishing Wiktor a warm welcome and a fruitful time at the KLI. (Click on the title to read more.)

Barbara Fischer, along with a team comprising of Lynn Chiu, Severin Bachmayer and others created a workshop titled Solving The Riddles of Inheritance, specifically designed to teach school students the different modes of inheritance as well as the interplay between genes and environment on the visible traits of an organism. With emphasis on familiarising students with scientific methods and scientific thinking, this workshop includes hands-on Art-Science Activity, Microscope Laboratory Activity, and a Science Quiz.

In an interview with Hari Sridhar for the Reflections on Papers Past project, Gerd Müller shares the backstory of his well-known 2007 paper "Evo-devo: extending the evolutionary synthesis" published in Nature Review Genetics. The paper, written about 25 years after the field emerged, surveys evo-devo's research agendas and theoretical impulses at the time, and explores the implications of evo-devo findings for evolutionary theory. In the years following its publication, it served as a kind of trigger for the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis, which developed over the next decade. (Click in title to read more)

In an invited article for the Boku Magazine, Martin Schmid introduces his lecture “The Social Ecology of the Anthropocene”, which encourages long-term, interdisciplinary thinking by looking back into the past. With the climate crisis, the rapid loss of biodiversity and other global crises, it reveals the Anthropocene as a specific, historically unique way in which human societies relate to nature. (Click on title to read more...)

A recent paper in Nature Communications, co-led by Nicole Gunstra (University of Vienna), Anne Le Maître (KLI) and Philipp Mitteröcker (KLI and University of Vienna) revealed that animals with very little genetic relatedness, Afrotheria and their non-afrotherian counterparts, inhabiting similar habitats or having similar ecologies, showed high similarity in their inner ears—a clear case of convergent adaptive evolution, demonstrating high evolvability of the inner ear in mammals. The authors explain that this high evolvability is facilitated by the anatomical, genetic and developmental complexity of the ear, which bestows upon it a higher developmental modularity, and consequently leading to the high diversity observed in ears of mammals as compared to other vertebrates.

A team of KLI Fellows, co-led by Laura Menatti and Corey Bunce, and including Anna-Katharina Brenner, Joyshree Chanam, Marina Knickel and Hari Sridhar, contributed a book chapter titled, "Adapting to Heatwaves: Reframing, Understanding, and Translating Strategies from India to the EU" to the book "Strengthening European Climate Policy" produced by the European SSH CENTRE. This book chapter is the main outcome of an interdisciplinary project started in 2023, for which former KLI scientific director Guido Caniglia acted as facilitator. This book chapter proposes an innovative framework for understanding adaptation to climate change through an interdisciplinary approach. (Click on title to continue...)

Save the dates!! Here's announcing the Fall-Winter 2024-2025 KLI Colloquium Series! We have a great list of speakers for the Fall-Winter program starting on the 3rd of October: Martin Brüne (Ruhr-University Bochum), Mihaela Pavlicev (University of Vienna), Kevin Lala (University of St. Andrews), Stuart Newman (New York Medical College), Sarah Davies (University of Vienna), Barbara Fischer (KLI & University of Vienna), Simon Huttegger (University of California, Irvine), Sergio Porta (University of Strathclyde) and Martin Schmid (University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna (BOKU).

The 7th European Advanced School in the Philosophy of the Life Sciences (EASPLS) was held at the KLI from 9th to 13th September 2024. The EASPLS is a biennial event that brings together PhD scholars and early career researchers alongside experienced and renowned academics in a carefully curated format, aiming to facilitate professional training, ignite research collaborations, and drive intellectual growth through engagement. The event is organised by a consortium of institutes in Europe working at the forefront of Philosophy, History and Social studies of the Life sciences. This year's edition was led by Leonardo Bich (University of the Basque Country), Lucie Laplane (IHPST, CNRS/Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne), Matteo Mossio (IHPST, CNRS/Université Paris 1) on the topic, “Explanation and Evidence in Biology and Medicine”. Lectures revolved around philosophical debates on explanation and evidence in the life sciences, analysing the existing strategies, evaluating their strengths, weaknesses, and mutual relations. (Click on title to continue.)

KLI Fellow Anne Le Maître was interviewed by Lauren Leffer for the online magazine Popular Science, along with two other scientists, viz., Mark Coleman (Associate professor of anatomy at Western Atlantic University School of Medicine, the Bahamas) and Bridget Alex (paleoanthropologist, Harvard University). In the recent article posted on 6 September 2024, titled, “Why do we have earlobes? They make no evolutionary sense”, Anne explains the complexity of the inner and middle ear in mammals, including humans, and the evolutionary transition from ancestral forms still seen in birds and crocodiles to their present mammalian form. (Click on title to continue...)

Read the editors’ summary of the latest issue, with free reading links for all the articles in 19(3). The issue includes articles analyzing the concept of goal-directedness across scientific disciplines, the use of lived experiences in sleep studies, how agency fits with the mutuality of animals and their environments, and a study of snake–human interactions for what it indicates about knowledge transmission and population evolution. The issue also includes an essay about the relationship of Richard Lewontin’s research program to the one he inherited from Theodosius Dobzhansky and two articles delving into the debate on measuring reproductive fitness.

The KLI team engaged in the Horizon Europe project PLUS Change – Marina Knickel, Guido Caniglia and Nora Hein – have developed an Ethics Handbook that provides guidance on dealing with ethical issues of equity and justice in land use research and practice. The main goal of the Handbook is to support actors in land use decision-making to prevent the exacerbation of social and environmental injustices that arise from uneven access to resources and decision-making power.

We are very happy to welcome our new Fellow Visitor Martin Andreas Schmid to the KLI. Martin is an environmental historian trained in history and archaeology. He studies the biophysical and symbolic relationships of society with nature since c. 1500 with focus on Austria and Europe. He currently holds the position of Associate Professor for Environmental History at the Department of Economics and Social Sciences (WiSo), University of Natural Resources & Life Sciences, Vienna (BOKU). Martin’s KLI project is titled, “What Is Socio-Ecological Industrialization in Co-Evolutionary Terms?”

We are very happy to welcome our new Fellow Visitor Sean Pears to the KLI. Sean is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Philosophy in Biology and Medicine at the University of Bordeaux, with a focus on the philosophy of biology, particularly evolutionary theory and the expanded evolutionary synthesis. He will be at the KLI for two months, from September 1 to October 31, 2024. During his time at the KLI, Sean will be working on his project titled, ‘Eco-Evo-Devo and Restoration: Cultivating Evolvable Socio-Ecosystems’.