Evolution research group
Molecular data are used to study the ecology and evolution of plants, animals and microbes. We have a major strength in the use of DNA sequence data to construct molecular phylogenies to unravel patterns in the evolution of biodiversity including responses to climate change. We also make extensive use of molecular ecology to understand structure, dispersal and history of populations in plants, fungi, and animals. Several of us are investigating the links between particular genes, phenotypes and the environment, in order to understand the genetic basis of adaptation.
The Evolution of Language and Culture
Human languages, like genes, evolve over time. Mark Pagel, Andrew Meade and colleagues in the Evolution research group at Reading use statistical and computational methods inspired by genetic evolution to study the evolution of language and culture. They are finding ways to build phylogenetic trees of languages to measure rates of word evolution over time, and then to use those trees to answer questions like: Why do some words evolve faster than others? Are there words that change slowly enough to allow us to reconstruct the languages of our ancient ancestors, and if so, what are they? How are new languages born, and how quickly do they diverge from one another?
Biodiversity Informatics is a major theme of the Evolution research group. 
Reading University hosts the Species 2000 secretariat which has responsibility for publication of the Catalogue of Life. There are two major EC funded projects supporting the development and use of the Catalogue at present: 4D4Life and i4Life. The 4D4Life project is developing the content of the Catalogue and tools to enable the easier provision of new data. The i4Life project aims to harmonise species lists held by the Catalogue of Life with those used by the EMBL Nucleotide Sequence Database, The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the BOLD/ECBOL DNA barcoding consortium. (Photo - Drosera orbiculata, one of 1.3million species listed in Catalogue of Life)
Further information about the research interests of individual staff members can be found in the table below.
| Academic Staff | Research Interests | |
| Dr Julie Hawkins |  |
Head of Evolution research groupPlant Evolution, Plant Conservation, Plant DNA certification, Taxonomy, Wildlife trade and conservation, Molecular phylogenetics. |
| Dr Alastair Culham |  |
Biodiversity informatics, evolutionary responses to climate change, plant phylogeny and taxonomy, DNA barcoding & molecular markers. |
| Dr Louise Johnson |  |
Evolution, genetics, intragenomic conflict, genomics, levels of selection, genome defence |
| Dr Andrew Meade |  |
Phylogentic inference, Comparative methods, Computational biology and High performance computing |
| Professor Mark Pagel |  |
Evolution, computational biology, language evolution, phylogeny, Markov chain Monte Carlo |
| Dr M. Alejandra Perotti |  |
Genes and environment, Forensic biology, Acarology, Mites, endosymbiotic bacteria, Wolbachia |
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| Research Fellows | Research Interests | |
| Dr Nicholas Cryer |  |
Genotypic analysis of plant diversity |
| Dr Yuri Roskov |  |
Biodiversity Information Systems, operational manager of Species 2000 and ILDIS |