His work was one of the first molecular studies in the field of evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo in short), a discipline that started its revival in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
He is awardee of the FALCON Prize of the German Society for Cell Biology and was head co-organizer of the 19th International C. elegans Conference, UCLA, USA in 2013.
[1] Described in 1996 as a new species by Sommer and co-workers, P. pacificus has grown as an important model system, in which laboratory studies that aim for a mechanistic understanding of evolution can be combined with fieldwork.
[8] P. pacificus work on La Réunion Island is supported by a field station at the local Insectarium in Le Port.
The integrative research program on P. pacificus represents a major paradigm shift for studying phenotypic evolution, by simultaneously investigating in one organism, the same patterns and processes from independent evolutionary perspectives.