David Reznick, a distinguished professor of biology at UC Riverside, has been awarded a Humboldt Research Award by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of Germany.

The foundation recognizes top scientists and scholars from around the world at different stages in their careers. Award winners are invited to conduct research of their choice in Germany in collaboration with a colleague from that country for six months to a year.

The award comes with a grant of 60,000 euros to conduct research.

A world-renowned evolutionary biologist, Reznick studies evolution as a contemporary process. For the funded project, he has studied the mode of maternal provisioning of 160 species in the guppy family of fish in the Caribbean, Central America, and South America.

Reznick will work with Professor Axel Meyer at the University of Konstanz in Germany, who has a genomics research program. They plan to try to identify genes associated with the evolution of placentas by quantifying gene expression in three pairs of closely related species of guppy fishes with and without placentas.

Reznick said he is pleased to be recognized by the Humboldt Foundation and is making arrangements for his study abroad next year.

The author of “The Origin Then and Now: An interpretive guide to the Origin of Species,” Reznick is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He won the E.O. Wilson Naturalist Award in 2003, was the Faculty Research Lecturer in 1998, and a Guggenheim Fellow in 2016-17.