Biological Theory Issue 13:1 is online now. Enjoy the introduction to the thematic section / guest editorial ...

We welcome Lorenzo DEL SAVIO (University of Munich) to the KLI who will work on his project "Are Humans Self-domesticated Animals?"

We welcome our new postdoctoral fellow Alice LACINY who will work on the project "Eco-Evo-Devo in Action: Parasite-Induced Morphologies in Ants."

We welcome our new writing-up fellow Gregory RUPIK (University of Toronto) who will work on the project "Organismal Agency in Romantic Biology and Today."

A group around KLI fellow Nicole Grunstra and Philipp Mitteroecker developed new methods to reconstruct phylogenetic relationships from morphology.

Gerd B. Müller and Ehab Abouheif's new entry on evo-devo offers an introduction to characteristic themes and highlights selected papers that address crucial conceptual aspects.

Co-authored by KLI fellow Christian Dorninger, their new paper shows that rich countries rely on a large net appropriation of resources from the global South.

Understanding animal social networks through behavioral observations has been a challenge to behavioral ecologists due to many factors including non-independent interactions, sampling bias etc. that lead to confounded causal effects. In a recent paper published in PLOS Computational Biology, KLI Fellow Ben Kawam and colleagues present a new analytical framework based on causal inference that provides a more transparent link between empirical observations with theoretical models, and solves common statistical issues with in the analysis of animal social networks. (Click on title to read more.)

A new article co-authored by Guido Caniglia combines niche construction theory with social-ecological systems science to better understand the relationships between sociocultural and environmental co-evolutionary processes that have led to the current planetary crisis.

What has Conspiracy Theories got to do with individual personality traits and socio-environmental factors?? Quite a lot actually, according to a new multi-author paper including Guido Caniglia, published in SN Social Sciences. (Click on title to read more…)

In a new study, published in Nature Ecology and Evolution, co-lead authors Daniel Stadtmauer (KLI alumnus) and Silvia Basanta (KLI Postdoc Fellow), along with colleagues from the University of Vienna, Yale University, and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, investigate cell signalling networks in the fetal-maternal interface, and reveal new insights into our current understanding of the co-evolution of fetal and maternal cell types to facilitate pregnancy. (Click on title to read more.)

A team of evolutionary biologists and theoreticians, including KLI Group Leader for Philosophy Cristina Villegas, and KLI External Faculty members Benedikt Hallgrímsson and Laura Nuño de la Rosa, and led by Christophe Pélabon, has recently published a review article on the notion of evolvability in the journal BioScience. This review article intends to bring the notion of evolvability closer to biologists of all disciplines by summarizing the main progresses made in evolvability research since its emergence in the 1990s, as well as by pointing towards the most salient open lines of evolutionary research that touch upon it. (Click on title to read more.)

New paper by Hari Sridhar and Priti Bangal revisits the ‘nuclear species’ concept, finding frequent mis-citations of core ideas.

How do participants in arts–science collaborations reason together to overcome disciplinary boundaries and to co-create interventions? This article by Luana Poliseli and Guido Caniglia chronicles how inter- and transdisciplinary reasoning unfolded in such a collaborative project involving experts from the natural sciences, humanities, and the arts. It appears that embracing of differences rather than seeking consensus among diverse perspectives allows inter- and transdisciplinary reasoning to help navigate unpredictable situations effectively by capitalising on and leveraging differences. (Click on the title to read a summary article of this new paper!)

This new paper by Enrico Petracca (KLI Senior Fellow) and Shaun Gallagher challenges the post-Northian idea in institutional economics that a norm’s content is physically located in the minds of the agents; rather, Enrico and Gallagher argue that norms are genuinely relational concepts emerging from a practical interaction, and are located in institutional practices. (Click on title to read more.)

A new clinical study by a team of researchers including Barbara Fischer (KLI Group Leader in Evolutionary Biology), reveals that the shape of a woman’s pelvis may significantly influence her risk of developing postpartum pelvic organ prolapse (POP). These results have the potential to be applied for risk assessment in preventive care. (Click on title to read more.)

New paper in Nature Sustainability by Caniglia et al. outlines a new role for practical wisdom and virtue ethics in knowledge co-production for transformative change.

New paper by Caniglia and Vogel outlines how queer theory can help transdisciplinary sustainability researchers to embrace transgressive orientations.

Laura Menatti and Mariagrazia Ranzini 's new paper explores the effects of Covid lockdowns on relationships and connectedness, with important implications for future health policy.

KLI fellow Enrico Petracca questions the problem’s main assumption: That cognitive phenomena can be categorized based on their inherent complexity or representation-hunger.