University of Valencia

Academic, scientific or professional interest: Biodiversity is a polysemous concept that encompasses diverse aspects at different biological scales. The current proposal has as its goal the multidisciplinary training of postgraduates with sufficient ability to face the political and social demand of experts in this area. One of the basic scientific concepts is the need for realistic strategies for knowing, measuring, to compile and inventory, and to preserve and manage biodiversity, just as it was defined by the Rio Conference in 1992. For a proper understanding of the aspects related to biodiversity, evolutionary biology is essential, discipline that studies the origin, change over time and persistence of genes, biological functions, individuals, species, supraspecific taxa and interacting populations of living beings. Additionally, knowledge on the genetic, geographical, historical and ecological processes and factors, among others, that play a role on the evolution, adaptation and diversity of living beings are needed in this field. Developments in molecular biology, the application of new modelling and instrumentation techniques and the expansion of computational approaches have bring about an increase in the number of evolutionary studies in all the biological organisation levels.