Our Mission
Meet the Team
We are a team of evolutionary biologists, geneticists, and conservation specialists dedicated to uncovering how organisms evolve, adapt, and diverge. Our collaborative research—spanning population genetics, ecological speciation, cytogenetics, and conservation biology—brings together diverse expertise to tackle fundamental questions about life’s complexity.
SnailEvoLab People
Current members
Meet the researchers who currently form our team, contributing to ongoing projects, daily scientific work, and the development of new ideas.
Emilio Rolán-Álvarez, PhD.
Full Professor
Emilio Rolán-Álvarez studies ecological speciation in the marine snail Littorina saxatilis, where two ecotypes—wave-adapted and crab-adapted morphs—have evolved reproductive isolation while occupying the same geographic regions. His research demonstrates that this sympatric divergence is driven by ecological adaptation to different shore microhabitats and differential predation, with reproductive isolation evolving as a by-product of ecological selection. He pioneered molecular approaches to understand how local selection maintains phenotypic polymorphisms and prevents gene flow across narrow hybrid zones on the Galician coast.
Armando Caballero, PhD.
Full Professor
Armando Caballero Rúa specializes in population genetics and effective population size (Ne) estimation, developing linkage disequilibrium methods to estimate contemporary and historical Ne from high-density genetic markers. His research demonstrates that LD-based Ne estimates are robust against natural selection, making them reliable for inferring demographic history in complex genomic contexts. His work has major applications in conservation genetics, where accurate Ne estimates are critical for breeding programs and maintaining genetic diversity
Antonio Carvajal, PhD.
Full Professor
Antonio Carvajal-Rodríguez applies information theory to evolutionary genetics, using Kullback-Leibler divergence to quantify sexual selection and assortative mating. He developed the QInfoMating framework, which enables precise assessment of mating preference strength for both discrete and continuous traits in a unified theoretical context. His approach reveals that sexual selection leaves measurable informational signatures that can be quantified as deviations from random mating.
Juan Galindo, PhD.
Associate Professor
Juan Galindo Dasilva work focuses on Littorina saxatilis hybrid zones, determining barriers to gene flow and their consequences on genomic architecture of ecotypes and reproductive isolation. His research combines behavioral approaches including mate choice with field data and lab crosses. He also leads research on the effects of structural variants karyotype evolution and ecological adaptation in Nucella lapillus.
Ramón Guerra
MSc Thesis Student
Ana Rodríguez Fernández
MSc Thesis Student
Antía Pérez Carballo
BSc Thesis Student
Iago Álvarez Lomba
BSc Thesis Student
Past Members
A recognition of the talented people who were once part of our group and contributed to its growth, progress, and scientific achievements.
Ángela Fonseca Estévez
Research Assistant
Jonathan Fernández Rodríguez, PhD
PhD Candidate
Antonio Fors González
BSc Thesis Student
Cristian Alvela
Undergraduate Intern
Colaborators
Scientists and research partners from other institutions who work with us, sharing expertise and contributing to joint projects and discoveries.
Roger K. Butlin, PhD.
Principal Investigator
Animal and Plant Sciences, University of Sheffield, UK
Department of Marine Science at Tjärnö, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Littorina research community
We are proud members of the Littorina Research Community, an international community of researchers working across multiple countries to advance our understanding of biodiversity evolution. Using marine snails of the genus Littorina as model systems, we conduct fieldwork on rocky shores, analyse snail traits in the lab, work with large DNA datasets, and develop theoretical models.
Our Parent Research group
Evolutionary Genetics and Biodiversity Conservation group (XB2)
The Evolutionary Genetics and Biodiversity Conservation Group of Vigo University is one of the Reference Groups by The Xunta de Galicia (Spain).
The group, formed by about 20 researchers, develops a number of research lines addressing evolutionary issues (speciation, molecular evolution), genetic characterisation of species of commercial interest, development of informatics tools for the analysis of DNA and the design and management of conservation programmes.
Research, teaching and outreach
XB2 Research Group numbers over the last 5 years
Key Metrics and Achievements
Publications
Funded and Involved Projects
Doctoral Thesis
Bachelor’s and Master's Thesis
Outreach activities
Work with us!
All open positions are listed on the Mariña Research Center (CIM) job portal, where our group is based.