The BBVA Foundation recognizes Rosemary and Peter Grant for discovering evolutionary mechanisms vital for the conservation of threatened species
The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Ecology and Conservation Biology category goes, in this tenth edition, to evolutionary biologists Rosemary and Peter Grant “for their profound contributions to our understanding of the mechanisms and processes by which evolution occurs in the wild,” in the words of the jury’s citation. This husband-and-wife research team was the first to successfully document how evolution plays out in real time, uncovering mechanisms of utility for developing effective strategies to conserve threatened species.
6 February, 2018
Their painstaking work over the course of four decades with the Galapagos finches that inspired Charles Darwin has revealed that evolutionary changes can occur far faster than was ever thought possible. “Because of the Grants,” the citation states, “we now know that evolution is a far more dynamic process than Darwin initially imagined.” Their work, it continues, has provided “the most complete account of how evolution works in nature, elucidating the mechanisms by which genetic diversity is maintained and through which new species originate.”
