Merilä Lab
Biodiversity, Genomics and Wildlife Trade
Genomic insights into evolution, biodiversity and wildlife trade
From stickleback model systems that reveal how populations adapt and speciate, to DNA forensics that tracks the wildlife trade through Hong Kong. Led by Prof Juha Merilä at The University of Hong Kong.
39,717
citations on Google Scholar
105
h-index (Google Scholar)
22
current lab members and associates
1
RGC Area of Excellence centre on wildlife trade
3
current GRFs
In the media
Agarwood trafficking
Bird window-strikes
Yellow-crested cockatoos
Loach genetics
Mock viper taxonomy
Other coverage
Stories behind the papers
Some of our highlights
Extremely rapid speciation in a marine fish
We have recently discovered the fastest known speciation event in the marine realm that took place in the Baltic Sea and described the Baltic Flounder (Platichthys solemdali) as a new species to science. Read the original article published in PNAS from here, and article describing the new species from here. We have also uncovered a cryptic flounder assemblage turnover that took place in the 1990s in the Gulf of Finland, a finding published in Evolutionary Applications.
Population structure limits parallel evolution
Parallel evolution of similar phenotypic traits in multiple independent populations is a testimony of the power of natural selection. However, the degree to which such adaptations are underpinned by same or different genetic architectures, and how demographic factors influence the likelihood of parallelism have received limited attention. In series of papers (e.g. MBE 2010, Evolution 2011, Evolution 2012) we have drawn attention to often limited genetic parallelism, and demonstrated how demographic events and genetic population structure play major role as determinants of likelihood genetic parallelism (Nat Ecol Evol 2020; Mol Ecol 2021; Mol Biol Evol 2021).
Climate change adaptation – not quite that simple
In a review of evidence for climate change mediated evolution conducted in 2007 and published in Molecular Ecology in 2008, we noted that much of the claimed evidence did not stand scrutiny: a point that we have ever since made repeatedly in various perspective and review articles such as those published in Bioessays 2012 and Evolutionary Applications 2014. Our analysis of temporal decline in body size of Red-Billed Gulls (Larus novaehollandiae) published in PNAS 2008 provides an illustration how adaptive story telling can mislead us to infer adaptation when maladaptation is the reality.
What we work on now
Current projects in Hong Kong, plus the Centre for Safe, Sustainable and Legal Wildlife Trade.
Mutation rates in large and small populations · Recombination rates · Sex chromosomes · QTL mapping · Invasive species · Starlings · Yellow-crested cockatoos · Hong Kong snakes · Wildlife trade forensics · Snake systematics · Genetic rescue · Conservation genomics
Explore our research →
Publications
472 peer-reviewed papers since 1992, browsable by theme and year.
Evolution and climate change · Fisheries · Quantitative and population genomics · Conservation genetics · Wildlife trade reports
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