Home » Research Projects » Hybrind

Hybrind

Global changes, hybridization, and the tyranny of the golden mean

Global changes are impacting biodiversity and, at the same time, allow to identify major gaps in our understanding of key ecological and evolutionary processes. An emerging paradoxical gap is the so called “tyranny of the golden mean”: individual differences, albeit at the root of the evolutionary theory and ubiquitous in natural populations, are commonly encapsulated within descriptive statistics. This approach blurs the role played by non-average individuals within the study processes, potentially biasing our appreciation of the underlying mechanisms.

HYBRIND addresses this gap by focusing on the role of individual differences in hybridization dynamics. Hybridization is at the same time a fundamental step of major evolutionary processes, a consequence of global changes, and a main trigger of their outcomes. Through a combination of experimental and modelling approaches, HYBRIND investigates how inter-individual diversity impacts hybridization and its outcomes, and our ability to predict and forecast their relevance under several scenarios of global change.

Partners

Publications

  1. Berrilli, E., Gambioli, B., Bombi, P., Garzia, M., Muraro, M., Pardo, C., Reale, M., Sherpa, S., Ficetola, G.F., Vignoli, L., Salvi, D., 2024. Subspecies inflation hampers conservation efforts: a case study on wall lizards. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 143, blae001.
  2. Ficetola, G.F., Melotto, A., Scali, S., Sacchi, L., Salvi, D., 2024. Interference competition with an invasive species as potential driver of rapid extinction in an island-endemic lizard. Global Ecology and Conservation 55, e03251.
  3. Paris, J., Ficetola, G.F., Obiol, J.F., Silva-Rocha, I., Carretero, M.A., Salvi, D., 2024. Does hybridisation with an invasive species threaten Europe’s most endangered reptile? Genomic assessment of Aeolian lizards on Vulcano island. iScience 27, 111097.
  4. Sherpa, S., Salvi, D., Silva-Rocha, I., Capblancq, T., Paris, J.R., Carretero, M.A., Ficetola, G.F., 2024. Reconstructing the complex colonization histories of lizards across Mediterranean archipelagos. Journal of Biogeography 51, 157-172.
  5. Sherpa, S., Paris, J., Silva-Rocha, I., Di Canio, V., Carretero, M.A., Ficetola, G.F., Salvi, D., 2023. Genetic depletion does not prevent rapid evolution in island-introduced lizards. Ecology and Evolution 13, e10721.