The current threats to biodiversity are manifold. To conserve biodiversity and the countless services it provides, we need to understand how biodiversity was formed and what factors influence its dynamics. Evolutionary theory offers an extremely powerful paradigm for understanding why the living world is the way it is, for understanding how biodiversity is formed and what its dynamics are, and for understanding how populations manage to adapt, or not, to a changing environment. The sciences of ecology and evolution are essential to understanding the extent and consequences of the current biodiversity crisis, particularly for human societies.
This lecture will cover the history and principles of the synthetic theory of evolution, explaining how this theory enables us to understand the adaptation processes of living beings, the origin of life, the formation of species and their diversity, the evolution of behavior, the emergence of new crop diseases and pesticide resistance and biological invasions; the lecture will also cover the various factors threatening biodiversity, the ecosystem services that humans derive from biodiversity and the consequences of the rapid decline in biodiversity for human societies.