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GELIFES’ overarching research nexus: Adaptative Life1

Our research vision as well as our diversity in research expertise and facilities form the basis for our overarching research theme, Adaptive Life, now well established since 2015 - largely supported by a 10.5-million-euro funding from the University of Groningen and its Faculty of Science and Engineering. For the coming years we will direct our research efforts especially to three themes, as follows:

AL & research themes

Theme 1 - The Adaptive Ecosystem: Ecological Foundations of Sustainability

Landscapes and ecosystems worldwide are increasingly dominated by the ever-increasing ecological footprint of humanity. As a result, biodiversity is lost at an alarming rate, ecosystem services are under pressure, and natural resources become exhausted. At the same time, climate change forces us to adapt our conservation strategies of nature and land use practices to deal with new threats to the biosphere. We investigate the adaptive capacities of organisms in an ecosystem context across all habitats experienced during their annual and life cycle. Investigating such "life cycle ecological observatories" is critical for both the fundamental and applied understanding of the dynamics of population numbers, species interaction networks, biodiversity and ecosystem functioning.

We use a distinctive "Groningen approach": a combination of individually marked and tracked organisms, mapping ecological interaction networks (such as food webs) with advanced chemical and molecular markers, and novel data science approaches (using big data such as from remote sensing) in ambitious and long-term "ecological observatories". Through this unique approach and together with societal stakeholders, we develop novel strategies for "sustainable landscapes" that enhance spatial and functional complementarity of landscape and seascape uses, such as nature, farming, fishing, recreation, industry, infrastructure, urbanization.

This promotes ecosystem services, animal and human well-being while restoring biodiversity and facilitating climate change adaptation and mitigation. This integrative landmark approach is developed (1) across marine, freshwater and terrestrial habitats; (2) from agricultural to natural ecosystems; (3) from microbial communities to megafauna; (4) through combining observational, experimental and theoretical approaches and, (5) in interdisciplinary collaboration with spatial, social and economic sciences and with societal partners. Our spatial scope ranges from the northern provinces of the Netherlands (such as our research on the Wadden Sea or on sustainable agroecological practices), up to regional and global walkways, flyways and swimways of migratory ungulates, fish and birds, from the arctic to the tropics.

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Theme 2 - The Adaptive Organism: Eco-Evo-Devo Foundations of Adaptation

Evolution has created an amazing variation in morphologies, behaviours and life cycles, not only at the level of species but also within species. These phenotypes are not fixed but change both over evolutionary time scales and within the lifespan of organisms through their interactions with the environment. Evolution can only be understood within the ecological context that shapes the selection pressures that precipitate adaptations. Equally important, evolution is channelled by processes of inheritance, development and demography that act during the entire life cycle of organisms. Understanding the latter informs not only about why but also about how natural selection can modify organisms. As the scope of this theme, we therefore extend our already established integration of ecological and evolutionary approaches (eco-evo) with that of development over the entire life span of the organism.

Using this eco-evo-devo approach, we specifically aim to understand the scope and limitations of phenotypic variation and plasticity. In addition to its fundamental importance, this is crucial to understand and predict the adaptive capacity of organisms under rapid environmental change in the current Anthropocene. This not only relates to biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, including the problem of invasive species, but also to health and well-being in our own society as well as in animal production systems.

We develop this eco-evo-devo approach through multidisciplinary research in a wide range of species (microbes, plants, invertebrates, fish, birds, rodents, humans) and habitats (ranging from the arctic to the tropics). As organisms' phenotypes are dynamic entities that emerge from their behaviour, morphology, physiology, neurobiology, immunology, and microbiome, we integrate all these aspects in this research topic. This connects our expertise from genetics and genomics, microbiology, physiology, neurobiology, ecology, behavioural biology, and theoretical modelling. Topics of special interest studied using this approach are speciation, sex determination, host-parasite relationships, microbiome interactions, social behaviour, senescence and ageing, animal personalities, trans-generational parental effects, and evolutionary medicine.

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Theme 3 - The Adaptive Brain: Neurobiological Foundations of Behaviour and Cognition

Adaptation, defined as the ability to adjust to varying environmental conditions through both evolutionary change and individual adjustments, is a key characteristic of life. The brains of higher animals are a product of adaptive evolutionary processes as well as of short-term adaptive interactions with the environment. The animal brain is critical for adaptation because it identifies threats and opportunities, stores past experiences, and regulates the behavioural and physiological response to stressors. Evolutionary inheritance and physical constraints set by the body plan (such as maximum brain size) have set boundaries of these adaptive brain processes.

A key feature of many organisms is the possession of neural mechanisms that facilitate adaptation to regular and predictable environmental changes, the most conspicuous being endogenous timing mechanisms that allow for synchronization to and/or anticipation of daily and seasonal rhythms in light, temperature, food availability and risk. Another core facet of adaptive success is the presence of evolutionary highly conserved physiological systems that facilitate responses to unpredictable environmental challenges, which includes the neural and neuroendocrine systems required for appropriate physiological and behavioural responses. Importantly, individuals can differ considerably in these adaptive responses. Disruptions in these fine-tuned processes and systems underlying adaptation to the environment may lead to breakdown of adaptation (or maladaptation), resulting in disease in some individuals but not others. This may, for example, be due to modern-world environmental challenges that evolution did not prepare the organism for.

In this theme, we focus on two research lines. The first line is to advance our understanding of how brain circuits and associated genetic, cellular, and molecular mechanisms integrate both environmental and interoceptive information to drive behaviour and endocrine/physiological processes that promote survival. The second line is the advancement of knowledge on disease processes disrupting the adaptive functioning of the brain, including molecular and cellular mechanisms, the gut microbiome, individual variation in disease sensitivity, and development of therapeutic strategies. The integrative approach of research in GELIFES in this clinical context is well reflected in our research in evolutionary medicine, asking not only how, but also why we become ill, given our evolutionary history.

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These themes are not mutually exclusive, and many principal investigators are involved in more than one theme.


1 Established in 2015 by the University of Groningen, the Adaptive Life program has been developed around three main research domains, each resulting in a range of applications to key questions at stake within the Sustainable Society and the Healthy Aging societal priority areas of the University. These are i) modes of adaptation, ii) adaptive diversity and diversification and iii) architecture of adaptive systems. The program is primarily developed within the GELIFES where adaptation is a key research issue. The program also provides excellent opportunities for cross-disciplinary research and inter-faculty collaborations in various domains, such as robotics and other human-designed adaptive systems, modelling of cognition and neural networks, biological processes at the molecular level, energetics and metabolism, biomedical and pharmaceutical research, complex systems in relation to large data, to name a few.

Last modified:20 May 2023 1.17 p.m.