Michael Krützen

Senior Lecturer, University of Zürich

Research Projects:

My broad interests are in the social evolution of both primates and cetaceans. In particular, I am interested in male cooperation and reproductive strategies, as well as the nature of cultural behaviour. Using DNA techniques, my work focuses on genetic relationships among cooperating individuals, quantifying reproductive success, and linking social correlates with population genetic and phylogeographic patterns.

Another major interest of mine is the nature and transmission of culture in both primates and cetaceans. Studying the convergent evolution of culture in both marine and terrestrial habitats will help to understand what have led to the rise of human culture.

More recently, my lab started to employ population genomics approaches to identify the genetic signatures of adaptive evolution in orang-utans and dolphins. Using landscape genomics approaches, our work aims to disentangle adaptive evolution from non-adaptive processes such as genetic drift by taking into account demographic, stochastic and environmental processes.


  • –present
    Senior Lecturer, University of Zürich