The research cluster “Evolution and Behaviour” develops four research topics related to diversity and evolution of  behavior in model animals, insects and fish. These main topics are:

• “Cognition, reproduction and adaptation in bees“, where Jean-Christophe Sandoz develops research on olfaction and their evolution in Hymenoptera. He is also interested in understanding how bees reproduce, which chemical signals they use and how they adapt to their environment.
• “Fish evolution”  with Didier Casane studies how cavefishes have evolved, in particular how the loss of vision is compensated by other senses like olfaction and what are the consequences on their genome evolution.
• “Adaptation and speciation in drosophila”, with Amir Yassin, who is interested in understanding how adaptation to a toxic plants is allowed by genotypic and phenotypic changes of a host of systems, including detoxification and sensory abilities of insects, using mainly Drosophila yakuba adapted to noni as a model.
• “Development” with Michael Lang, who looks at how organs shape and symmetry change between species

By pooling questions and know hows of its teams, Evolution and Behaviour, develops an integrative approach of food and reproductive behaviors, ranging from molecular and physiological  mechanisms to the behaviors, in the perspective of understanding the responses of individuals, groups and species to evolutive pressures.

The teams develop and share experimental approaches which are specific of this cluster, and are essentially based on individuals: behavioural observations, electrophysiology, neuro-anatomy and functional imaging methods, conditioning and learning devices, analysis of chemical signals.