Niche construction

In the last week of September, the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Plön, Germany, hosted a workshop entitled Talking Evolution. Key topics discussed were niche construction, phenotypic plasticity, developmental bias, and extra-genetic inheritance. The workshop was organized by Noémie Erin, Alice Feurtey, Vandana Venkateswaran and Dominik Schmid, four early career researchers, and Maren Lehmann, the workshop coordinator at the MPI. Katrina Falkenberg interviewed the organizers about the workshop, how it came about and their highlights from the three days of talks and discussions.

Stuart Newman is a Professor of Cell Biology and Anatomy at the New York Medical College in Valhalla, New York. He is a prominent evolutionary developmental biologist, well known for his pioneering work on vertebrate limb development and the role of physical mechanisms in development and morphological evolution. Katrina Falkenberg is the science communication and outreach officer for the EES research program. She interviewed Stuart about physical mechanisms of development and their importance for understanding evolution.