The Evolution of Darwin’s Finches

Millions of species called Earth home. They evolved by repeated multiplication and diversification. To understand these processes, we have put the scientific spotlight on Darwin’s finches in the Galápagos archipelago. One finch species gave rise to 18 or more in the relatively short time of 1 million years. The question, broadly, is how and why did that happen?

In this Presidential Lecture, Peter and Rosemary Grant will present the results of a 40-year study of four species on one island to reveal the dynamics of contemporary evolution. In conjunction with investigations into the species’ developmental and evolutionary genetics, this work reveals the mechanisms that make evolution happen.

Peter Grant studied at Cambridge University, the University of British Columbia and Yale University. He has held positions at McGill University, the University of Michigan and Princeton University. Rosemary Grant was educated at Edinburgh University and Uppsala University and held a research and teaching position at Princeton University. Both Peter and Rosemary Grant retired from Princeton in 2008. For their joint research on the evolution of Darwin’s finches in the Galápagos, they received the Balzan Prize in 2005, the Darwin-Wallace Medal in 2009, the Kyoto Prize in 2009 and the Darwin (2002) and Royal (2017) Medals of the Royal Society of London. They are both fellows of the Royal Society and members of the National Academy of Sciences.