Research

Axel Meyer’s main research areas within evolutionary biology are molecular phylogenetics, evolutionary genomics and genetics of adaptations and speciation.

He worked on a wide range of problems in molecular phylogenetics. His main contribution to comparative genomics was the discovery of the fish-specific genome duplication. Other genomic work focussed on the evolution of Hox gene clusters and other gene clusters where he could show that the genome of vertebrates underwent two rounds of complete genome duplications. He also made contributions to the understanding of the evolution of novel gene functions following gene and genome duplications.

Through his work on cichlid fish, he could show that speciation can occur without geographic barriers to gene flow and proceed much faster than was previously thought. Speciation does not require millions of years, rather, under some circumstances, new species can arise in only a few hundred generations.