biology

Kevin Lala

Kevin Lala is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Kevin Lala rather than just read about it. In short: Kevin Neville Lala (formerly Laland; born 5 October 1962) is an English evolutionary biologist who is Professor of Behavioural and Evolutionary Biology at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. Educated at the University of Southampton and University College London, he was a Human Frontier Science Program fellow at the University of California, Berkeley before joining the University of St Andrews in 2002.

Key takeaways

Kevin Lala belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Kevin Lala to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Kevin Lala from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Kevin Neville Lala (formerly Laland; born 5 October 1962) is an English evolutionary biologist who is Professor of Behavioural and Evolutionary Biology at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. Educated at the University of Southampton and University College London, he was a Human Frontier Science Program fellow at the University of California, Berkeley before joining the University of St Andrews in 2002. He is one of the co-founders of niche construction theory and a prominent advocate of the extended evolutionary synthesis. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Society of Biology. He has also received a European Research Council Advanced Grant, a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award, and a John Templeton Foundation grant. He was the president of the European Human Behaviour and Evolution Association from 2007 to 2010 and a former president of the Cultural Evolution Society. Lala is currently an external faculty of the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research and Editor-in-Chief of Biological Theory.

Cognition and learning The Lala Lab is primarily focused on animal social learning, innovation, and intelligence, as well as human evolution, particularly the evolution of cognition and culture. Their work lies at the interdisciplinary interface of evolutionary biology, animal behavior, ecology, and psychology.

Niche construction theory Following John Odling-Smee's attempt in 1988 to formalize the process of niche construction as an evolutionary process, Odling-Smee, Lala, and Marcus W. Feldman developed a theoretical framework – Niche Construction Theory – that models niche construction as an evolutionary process reciprocally interacting with the process of natural selection. This theory has been applied widely across multiple fields, including ecology evolutionary developmental biology, and human and cultural evolution.

Extended evolutionary synthesis In the mid-2010s, Kevin Lala, Tobias Uller, and colleagues pushed for an extended evolutionary synthesis in a series of high-impact articles. From 2015 to 2018, Uller and Lala led a large international John Templeton Foundation grant to test key hypotheses and assumptions of the extended evolutionary synthesis.

Anti-racism work Kevin Lala previously served on the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion division of the School of Biology as deputy director. He is currently serving as an anti-racism advocate. Lala changed his name from Laland, stating on his lab website "Lala was my original family name, which my parents anglicized when I was 4, in an attempt to reduce the racism that their children experienced. I may have benefited from my surname being anglicized, but it did not sit right with me that I should still bear that name more than 50 years later. I wish to celebrate my ancestry not hide it. I am proud of my Parsi Indian heritage. I am not going to be intimidated by racists."

Publications

Journal articles Google scholar

Books Evolutionary Causation: Biological and Philosophical Reflections, The MIT Press, 2019, Tobias Uller, Kevin N Laland ISBN 9780262039925 Darwin's Unfinished Symphony: How Culture Made the Human Mind, Princeton University Press, 2017 ISBN 9780691151182 Social Learning: An Introduction to Mechanisms, Methods, and Models, Princeton University Press, 2013, William Hoppitt and Kevin N. Laland ISBN 9780691150703 Sense and nonsense: Evolutionary perspectives on human behaviour, Oxford University Press, 2011, Kevin N. Laland and Gillian R. Brown, 2nd edition ISBN 9780199586967 Niche Construction: The Neglected Process in Evolution, Princeton University Press, 2003, John Odling-Smee, Kevin N. Laland, Marcus W. Feldman ISBN 9780691044378 Sense and nonsense: Evolutionary perspectives on human behaviour, Oxford University Press, 2002, Kevin N. Laland and Gillian R. Brown, 1st edition ISBN 9780198508847 Sense and nonsense: Evolutionary perspectives on human behaviour, Oxford University Press, 2024, Kevin N. Lala and Gillian R. Brown, 3rd edition ISBN 9780198908203

References

External links Faculty page The Lala Lab Niche construction resource website Extended evolutionary synthesis project website

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Kevin Lala

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Kevin Lala claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Kevin Lala before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Kevin Lala ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Kevin Lala

In research: Kevin Lala appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Kevin Lala in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Kevin Lala is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1962 births, Academics of the University of St Andrews, Alumni of University College London, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Kevin Lala outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Kevin Lala in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Kevin Lala means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Kevin Lala out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Kevin Lala in simple terms?

Why does Kevin Lala matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Kevin Lala?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Kevin Lala.