ESF Research Conferences

Ecological and Evolutionary Epigenetics is a new field of frontier research at the intersection between molecular genetics and evolutionary ecology. Research in this field is rapidly expanding because of the growing realization that epigenetic processes, notably those involving DNA methylation, might be much more relevant for ecology and evolution than previously acknowledged. Indeed, there is accumulating evidence that:
(1) epigenetic variation can be a source of heritable phenotypic variation that is
independent of DNA sequence variation
(2) epigenetic variation is widespread in natural populations
(3) the environment plays an important role in inducing epigenetic variation both within and across generations.
Thus, epigenetic variation might be a significant source of heritable phenotypic variation in natural populations. Moreover, induced epigenetic changes could represent an important component of the ecological and evolutionary responses of organisms to environmental change. However, much of this is still quite speculative, because of the lack of studies that have examined epigenetic variation and inheritance in an ecological and evolutionary context, i.e. using natural epigenetic variation, or conducting well-designed evolutionary ecological experiments. This conference would, to the best of our knowledge, be the first to bring together evolutionary ecologists, population geneticists and molecular epigeneticists, with the specific aim of setting ecological and evolutionary epigenetics on a strong theoretical and experimental footing. It will cover research on plants, animals and humans. It will connect several disciplines including molecular biology, genetics, epigenetics and developmental biology with the biology of whole organisms, environmental science and evolutionary biology.