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EvolVienna

Dr. Michael Kopp - Senior Postdoc

Max F. Perutz Laboratories Dr. Bohr-Gasse 9 (postal address) Vienna Biocenter 5, room 1722 A-1030 Vienna, Austria T: +43 (0) 1 4277 24052 M: +43 (0) 664 60277 24052 F: +43 (0) 1 4277 24098 michael.kopp[AT]univie.ac.at

General interests

Most broadly, my interests are in ecology and evolutionary biology, in particular population genetics and evolutionary ecology. My own work focuses on theoretical modeling. Currently, I am working on projects about competitive speciation and on adaptation to environmental change, but I am also interested in phenotypic plasticity, coevolution, and frequency-dependent selection.

Current project: Adaptation to a moving optimum

Together with Joachim Hermisson, I am analyzing the adaptation of a quantitative character to a moving optimum (i.e., to gradual environmental change). Starting from a simple one-locus model and moving on to more complicated multilocus models, we show that the speed of environmental change has a strong influence on the genetics of adaptation (e.g., on the number, type and temporal order of fixed beneficial mutations).

Current project: Competitive sympatric speciation

In recent years, interest in sympatric speciation has increased considerably. Many theoretical studies have focused on the possibility that sympatric speciation can be be induced by intraspecific competition, via selection for assortative mating. However, these models are also highly debated. We try to disentangle some of the open questions by analyzing a genetically explicit yet simple model, where the trait under selection is determined by a single diallelic locus. So far, we have been able to describe six possible regimes for the evolution of assortatitive mating, and to clarify the roles of natural versus sexual selection. We also extended the model by allowing females to experience costs of choosiness. Currently, we are investigating the effect of different genetic architectures on the likelihood of speciation (with Agnes Rettelbach).

Recent project: Evolution of genetic architecture under frequency-dependent disruptive selection

Quantitative traits (such as body size) show continuous variation in populations and are influenced by many genetic loci. How these loci interact to produce the phenotype is refered to as the genetic architecture of the trait. Short-term evolution consists of the change in allele frequencies within a given genetic architecture. Long-term evolution, in contrast, can lead to changes in the genetic architecture itself.

Frequency-dependent disruptive selection (FDDS) is an important mechanism for the creation and maintenance of genetic variation. It plays a pivotal role in the theory of adaptive dynamics. Adaptive dynamics models show that populations can actually evolve towards a regime of FDDS, which in turn can lead to the splitting of evolutionary lineages (so-called evolutionary branching).

In a recent project (together with Joachim Hermisson), I analyzed the evolution of the genetic architecture of a quantitative trait under FDDS. In the model, FDDS is caused by a combination of stabilizing selection and frequency-dependent competition, and the trait is determined additively by a number of biallelic loci. We used a modifier approach to study the evolution of the relative contributions of these loci to the phenotype. We found that evolution of locus contributions leads to an asymmetric genetic architecture where most of the genetic variation is accounted for by a small number of loci.

Previous work

As a PhD student at the Max-Planck-Institute of Limnology in Plön, Germany, I studied (in cooperation with Ralph Tollrian and Wilfried Gabriel) predation-related phenotypic plasticity in ciliated protozoa of the genera Euplotes, Colpidium, and Lembadion. In particular, I investigated a trophic size-polymorphism in Lembadion bullinum, and how this size-polymorphism interacts with an inducible defense in Euplotes octocarinatus. Furthermore, I developed and analyzed a theoretical model designed to investigate the effects of inducible prey defenses on predator-prey population dynamics and the coevolution of induction thresholds in both predator and prey.

As a postdoc at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, USA, I studied (together with Sergey Gavrilets) a multilocus model of predator-prey coevolution. The main purpose of this project was to compare the results from the one-locus and the multilocus case, and thus, to learn about the importance of genetic details in coevolutionary models. The results showed that the multilocus model is more prone to perform coevolutionary cycling, displays higher dynamic complexity and offers new insights into the maintenance of genetic variation.

I also collaborated with Jonathan Jeschke in projects on predator functional responses and on drift compensation in stream invertebrates.

Last modified: 15 Jan 2009