The current period is considered a “biodiversity crisis” and the knowledge of distribution and evolution of biodiversity is the basis for its successful conservation.
The research performed in the Division of Biodiversity focuses mainly on evolutionary processes affecting diversity of vertebrates (as holobionts, i.e. host plus its symbionts) at species and intraspecific (genetic) level, including factors responsible for its increase (e.g. speciation) and decrease (conservation genetics, extinctions of populations). Individual projects deal mainly with the following issues:
- speciation, hybridization;
- evolutionary history, phylogeography – origin of current genetic diversity and its spatial distribution;
- factors affecting holobiont diversity, e.g. host-parasite co-evolution and microbiome structure;
- biogeography, evolution of biodiversity hot-spots (especially in Africa);
- genetic threats of contemporary populations, conservation genetics;
- biological collections, biobanking.
Research teams
Running projects
Grant agency of the Czech Republic
Investigator: Václav Gvoždík
Co-investigator: Dagmar Čížková
International projects
Co-investigator: Jarmila Krojerová (roz. Prokešová)
Technology agency of the Czech Republic
Investigator: Jarmila Krojerová (roz. Prokešová)
Investigator: Jarmila Krojerová (roz. Prokešová)