Axel Meyer

Axel Meyer ( * August 4, 1960 in Mölln ) is a professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Konstanz.

Academic career

After visiting the Katharineum Lübeck he graduated from 1979 to 1982 his undergraduate studies at the University of Marburg. For main course, he joined in 1982, first at the University of Kiel, in the same year but still at the University of Miami, and shortly thereafter to the University of California, Berkeley, where he was admitted to a PhD program (after one academic year at Harvard University) was, from which he graduated in 1988.

He then worked as a postdoctoral fellow with Allan C. Wilson (1934-1991) at the University of California at Berkeley in the Department of Biochemistry. In 1990 he became assistant professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, Department of Ecology, Evolution, and appointed him in 1993 to associate professor. The University of Konstanz appointed him in 1997 as the successor of Hubert Markl to the Chair of Zoology and Evolutionary Biology.

Research area

Axel Meyer is primarily concerned with the evolution of different Fischtaxa, especially the cichlids of the African lakes such as Lake Victoria, Lake Tanganyika and Lake Malawi. He was able to show through his research that the species groups of the individual lakes must have developed in their diverse biological behavior and morphological adaptations each from different parental species and thereby demonstrate a very high degree of convergence. For the rapid Speziationsgeschwindigkeit several successive dehydration events as well as other forms of temporary separation of fish populations are responsible according to Meyer.

An important aspect of his research represent molecular biological studies, which also underpins the relationship of the individual species. Especially in recent years, he devoted himself also, increasingly, molecular developmental biology.

Awards and Affiliations

For his work, Axel Meyer received a number of national and international awards, including the Ernst Mayr Award from Harvard University (1987) and the Academy Award of the Berlin- Brandenburg Academy of Sciences ( 2000). In 2009 he was included in the Berlin- Brandenburg Academy of Sciences. In the same year he was also elected a member of the Leopoldina. He is a member of a number of scientific societies and acts on the editorial board of a number of journals of zoology, evolutionary biology and molecular biology.

Meyer is a member of the advisory board of the Giordano Bruno Foundation critical of religion.

Publications

• Algenraspler, snails geezer, shed eaters. Axel Meyer about the evolutionary success of cichlids. Audio CD, 79 minutes and booklet, 16 pages. Written and directed by Klaus Sander. Narrator: Axel Meyer. Berlin: 2008 ISBN 978-3-932513-86-2 supposé.
• List of publications, some with pdf downloads

• Monograph Genome Evolution: Gene and Genome ISBN 1-402-01021-4
• " The Metamorphosis " - Review by Christiane Nüsslein- Volhard Becoming of life in the time No. 14 of 25 March 2004