Staff Homepage

Dr Nick Colegrave

Location: Ashworth 1, G61B

Telephone:(0131) 650 7705

Email:n.colegrave@ed.ac.uk

Web-Site:

C.V.

Research groupings

Evolutionary Ecology
Social Evolution

Teaching

Origin and Diversity of Life (1 st Year)
Evolution in Action (2nd year)
Biodiversity (3 rd year)
[remove Animal evolution]
Field Zoology (3rd year)
Quantitative Zoology (4th  year)

Research interests

My interests are in the interface between ecology and evolution. Ecological interactions occur over a timescale of days or months, and have been viewed as essentially too quick to have relevance to long term evolution. Similarly, evolution was viewed as something that occurred over the millennia, and so of little importance to the day to day interactions studied by ecologists. However, it is slowly being realised that such a view is wrong and that the interaction between these fields is far more dynamic: The population dynamics of ecology will have profound effects on the selective forces of evolutionary biology which in turn will alter the properties of the organisms and affect their population dynamics. If we are to fully understand organic diversity, we need to consider both ecological and evolutionary forces, and the way in which they interact. Whilst my research has encompassed a wide range of organisms and specific questions, this general theme has run throughout. I do not limit myself to a single technique or study system, but instead attempt to use the best system for any particular question, often requiring a mixture of experimental and theoretical techniques.

Current Research: Adaptation and diversity in experimental microcosms.
Why are there so many species of animals and plants, rather than fewer more generalist species? And what affects the rate and precision of adaptation? These intimately linked questions are central to our understanding of evolution and ecology, yet they still remain largely unresolved. One reason for this is that, despite the large amount of theory that has been directed at these questions, there has been relatively little experimental work carried out over the sorts of timescales required to address these problems. My current research program attempts to address these questions using long term experimental evolution in two microbes: Chlamydomonas reinhardtii and Pseudomonas fluorescens.

Collaborative projects
In addition to my primary research, I am actively involved in a number of collaborative projects. I Collaborate with Dr Angus Buckling ( Oxford) and Dr Mike Brockhurst ( Liverpool) on questions of the evolution of diversity, and its limitations in microbial systems. Dr Kate Lessells (NIOO, Netherlands) and I are using mathematical models to examine the effects of environmental uncertainty on sex allocation decisions. Prof. Graham Ruxton ( Glasgow) and I are continually trying to develop and present pragmatic approaches to statistics for life scientists. Finally, I am working with Prof. Graham Bell ( McGill University, Canada) to develop experimental protocols to measure fitness in experimental evolution studies.

Representative publications

Hall, A and Colegrave, N. (2008) The decay of unused characters by selection and drift. Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 21, 610 – 617

Colegrave, N and Collins, S (2008) Experimental evolution and Evolvability. Heredity. doi: 10.1038/sj.hdy.6801095

Brockhurst MA, Colegrave N, Hodgson DJ and Buckling A (2007) Niche occupation limits adaptive radiation in experimental microcosms. PLoS ONE  2,  e193 –e195

Hall, A & Colegrave, N.  (2007). How does resource supply affect diversification? Proc. Roy.  Soc.  Lond. B. 274, 73 – 78.

Nee, S., N. Colegrave, West, S. and Grafen, A. (2005). The illusion of invariant quantities in life histories Science, 309, 1236 – 1239

Colegrave, N. and Ruxton, G. D. (2003).  Confidence intervals are a more useful compliment to non significant results than power analysis. Behavioural Ecology 14, 446-447.

Buckling, A., M. A. Wills & N. Colegrave. (2003). Adaptation limits diversification in experimental bacterial populations. Science. 302, 2107 – 2109

Colegrave, N. (2002) Sex releases the speed limit on evolution. Nature 420, 664-666