Simon Lab

Research focus

ERC Advanced Grant · 2021

Evolutionary and Molecular Determinants of a Nutritional Polyphenism

Environmental fluctuations are a general challenge for organisms, exacerbated in the context of global change. Many animals evolve phenotypically plastic responses to adjust to new conditions. Polyphenism is an original mechanism that produces specialized morphs to track environmental changes. Whether the molecular mechanisms underlying polyphenism evolve from the acquisition of novel genes or the rewiring of conserved environment-sensing pathways is an unresolved and challenging question as it requires well-characterized regulatory networks, including the involvement of host-microbiota molecular interactions, and relevant phylogenetic frameworks to root the evolutionary steps through which…

From the public funding record at EU CORDIS. Describes the funded project, not the reviews below.