Pedro Simões

Researcher

Experimental Evolution Climate Change Biogeographical Differentiation Predictability of Evolution Genome-wide Evolution Evolution of Chromossomal inversions

I am currently a Researcher at Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa, working in the team ‘Local Adaptation in Drosophila’ - headed by Prof. Margarida Matos - of the thematic line ‘Evolutionary Perspectives in a Changing World’ of CE3C. My main research focus at present is understanding the process of thermal adaptation at different biological levels. My research approach uses Drosophila as a model organism to address real-time evolution processes during adaptation to new thermal environments. In particular, I have been analyzing how historically differentiated Drosophila subobscura populations adapt to increasingly warmer and variable environments (under controlled laboratory conditions) – see research project ADAPTCLIMWARM.

I am currently involved as a member in an International Research Network (European Thermal Fertility Network - (https://thermal-fertility-network-eseb.org/) that addresses the impact of temperature (and other abiotic stressors) on animal fertility.

My current research has been driven by four overarching objectives: 1) Understanding the patterns of adaptation to climate change at the phenotypic and molecular level; 2) Unravelling the genomic and transcriptomic changes that occur during adaptation to new environments; 3) Addressing the role of History and Selection and the impact of such forces on the repeatability of Adaptive Evolution at both the phenotypic and genomic levels; 4) Understanding the evolutionary mechanisms underlying clinal variation, namely of chromosomal inversions.

I currently collaborate with several colleagues from International institutions working on Population and Evolutionary Genetics, Evolutionary Ecology, Experimental Evolution and Thermal Adaptation: in particular Mauro Santos (Univ. Autonoma Barcelona), Rhonda Snook (Stockholm University), Marta Pascual (Univ Barcelona) and Torsten Kristensen (Aalborg University). These collaborations have resulted in several publications throughout the years.

I am also a member of the editorial boards of the journals Frontiers in Genetics and Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, recommender for PCI Evolutionary Biology, and reviewer for several journals on Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Genetics.