Carles Vilà

Carles Vilà, PhD is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Evolutionary Biology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden. Initially, Dr Vilà’s research has been focused on aspects of the behavioral ecology of various groups of vertebrates. In his Master thesis, Dr Vilà studied the structure of bird communities living in fir forests in the Pyrenees. The research for his Ph.D. was centered on the behavioral ecology of Iberian wolves. As part of his dissertation, Dr Vilà included a morphological analysis of Eurasian wolf populations. He then completed a Post-doc on wolf genetics in the Department of Organismic Biology, Ecology, and Evolution at the University of California Los Angeles, UCLA, CA, USA.

His interest for conservation of wolves and other endangered carnivores, as well as for studies of population structure, led Dr Vilà’s interests towards conservation biology, and more specifically conservation genetics. During the last few years, Dr Vilà has been involved in studies with clear implications for the conservation and management of various taxa, such as gray wolves, African wild dogs (Lycaon pictus), arctic foxes (Alopex lagopus), Blanford's foxes (Vulpes cana), Darwin's foxes (Dusicyon fulvipes), and Pampas deer (Ozotoceros bezoarcticus).

Most of Dr Vilà’s research in the field of conservation biology has been centered on wolves. He studied wolf hybridization with dogs, the process of domestication of the dog, genetic variability of wolves and wolf population structure using mitochondrial DNA. Dr Vilà is currently involved in similar studies involving nuclear markers, such as microsatellites.

Finally, the need for a deeper understanding of the evolutionary processes that led to differentiation of taxa and populations has directed Dr Vilà towards in-depth studies of the evolution of groups of animals. He also focused on so-called artificial selection. In particular, Dr Vilà has been investigating available genetic evidence to reconstruct the domestication process for dogs and horses.

From the 1990’s, Dr Vilà has authored numerous publications that often appeared in very high-impact international scientific journals such as Science. Typically, Dr Vilà’s publications are based on the best science, and also address consequential management implications of his results.