Mihaela Pavličev
Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr.
Deputy Head of the Department of Evolutionary Biology
Head of the Unit for Theoretical Biology
phone +43-1-4277-56700
mihaela.pavlicev@univie.ac.at
About me
My foremost interest is in the organismal features that enable evolvability of complex organisms. To understand phenotypic evolution, we need to understand what patterns of heritable phenotypic variation the developmental/physiological systems are able to produce, what are the consequences of specific patterns of variation over short terms (population genetic scale) and long terms (species divergence observed in comparative biology) under selection and drift, and how the patterns of variation themselves evolve.
One recurring evolutionary phenomenon is the decoupling of variation between traits, and subsequent individuation of parts and the origin of new biological units. In this context, my work pertains to the role of pleiotropy and interactions in this process.
I pursue these questions of evolvability and individuation in theory as well as in empirical work on the evolution of limbs and of the mammalian female reproductive system.
Publications
2025
Basanta, S., & Pavlicev, M. (2025). The shifting role and regulation of the corpus luteum in vertebrate evolution: A synthetic review. The Quarterly Review of Biology, 100(3).
Pavlicev, M. (2025). Cracking open the blackbox of genotype-phenotype map: crossing the explanatory gap between micro- and macroevolution. Evolution.
Stadtmauer, D., Basanta, S., Maziarz, J., Cole, A., Dagdas, G., Rae Smith, G., van Breukelen, F., Pavlicev, M., & Wagner, G. (2025). Cell type and cell signalling innovations underlying mammalian pregnancy. Nature Ecology & Evolution.
2024
Pavlicev, M., DiFrisco, J., Love, A., & Wagner, G. P. (2024). Metabolic complementation between cells drives the evolution of tissues and organs. Biology Letters, 20(11), Article 20240490. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2024.0490
Pavlicev, M., & Wagner, G. (2024). Reading the palimpsest of cell interactions: What questions may we ask of the data? Iscience, 27(5), Article 109670. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2024.109670
Pavličev, M., McDonough-Goldstein, C. E., Zupan, A. M., Muglia, L., Hu, Y. C., Kong, F., Monangi, N., Dagdas, G., Zupančič, N., Maziarz, J., Sinner, D., Zhang, G., Wagner, G., & Muglia, L. (2024). A common allele increases endometrial Wnt4 expression, with antagonistic implications for pregnancy, reproductive cancers, and endometriosis. Nature Communications, 15(1), Article 1152. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-45338-4
2023
Grunstra, N. D. S., Betti, L., Fischer, B., Haeusler, M., Pavlicev, M., Stansfield, E., Trevathan, W., Webb, N. M., Wells, J. C. K., Rosenberg, K. R., & Mitteroecker, P. (2023). There is an obstetrical dilemma: Misconceptions about the evolution of human childbirth and pelvic form. American Journal of Biological Anthropology, 181(4), 535-544. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.24802
2022
Pavlicev, M., Herdina, A. N., & Wagner, G. P. (2022). Female Genital Variation Far Exceeds that of Male Genitalia: A Review of Comparative Anatomy of Clitoris and the Female Lower Reproductive Tract in Theria. Integrative and Comparative Biology, 62(3), 581-601. Article icac026. https://doi.org/10.1093/icb/icac026
Pavlicev, M., & Wagner, G. (2022). The value of broad taxonomic comparisons in evolutionary medicine: Disease is not a trait but a state of a trait! MedComm, 3(4), Article e174. https://doi.org/10.1002/mco2.174
2021
Nuno de la Rosa, L., Pavlicev, M., & Etxeberria, A. (2021). Pregnant Females as Historical Individuals: An Insight From the Philosophy of Evo-Devo. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, Article 572106. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.572106
2020
Pavlicev, M., Norwitz, E. R., Norwitz, G. A., Ng, S.-W., Tilburgs, T., & Simón, C. (2020). Endometrial Decidualization: The Primary Driver of Pregnancy Health. International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 21(11), 1-20. Article 4092. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms21114092
Pavličev, M., Romero, R., & Mitteroecker, P. (2020). Evolution of the human pelvis and obstructed labor: new explanations of an old obstetrical dilemma. American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, 222(1), 3-16. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajog.2019.06.043
Sakashita, A., Maezawa, S., Takahashi, K., Alavattam, K. G., Yukawa, M., Hu, Y.-C., Kojima, S., Parrish, N. F., Barski, A., Pavlicev, M., & Namekawa, S. H. (2020). Endogenous retroviruses drive species-specific germline transcriptomes in mammals. Nature Structural and Molecular Biology, 27(10), 967-977. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41594-020-0487-4
Zhang, X., Pavlicev, M., Jones, H. N., & Muglia, L. J. (2020). Eutherian-specific gene TRIML2 attenuates inflammation in the evolution of placentation. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 37(2), 507–523. https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msz238
2019
Griffith, O. W., Chavan, A. R., Pavlicev, M., Protopapas, S., Callahan, R., Maziarz, J., & Wagner, G. P. (2019). Endometrial recognition of pregnancy occurs in the grey short-tailed opossum ( Monodelphis domestica). Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences, 286(1905), Article 20190691. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2019.0691
Grunstra, N. D. S., Zachos, F. E., Herdina, A. N., Fischer, B., Pavlicev, M., & Mitteroecker, P. (2019). Humans as inverted bats: A comparative approach to the obstetric conundrum. American Journal of Human Biology, 31(2), Article e23227. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajhb.23227
Hansen, T. F., Solvin, T. M., & Pavlicev, M. (2019). Predicting evolutionary potential: A numerical test of evolvability measures. Evolution, 73(4), 689-703. https://doi.org/10.1111/evo.13705
Kshitiz, Afzal, J., Maziarz, J. D., Hamidzadeh, A., Liang, C., Erkenbrack, E. M., Nam, H., Haeger, J.-D., Pfarrer, C., Hoang, T., Ott, T., Spencer, T., Pavličev, M., Antczak, D. F., Levchenko, A., & Wagner, G. P. (2019). Evolution of placental invasion and cancer metastasis are causally linked. Nature Ecology & Evolution, 3(12), 1743-1753. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-019-1046-4
Pavlicev, M., Zupan, A. M., Barry, A., Walters, S., Milano, K. M., Kliman, H. J., & Wagner, G. P. (2019). An experimental test of the ovulatory homolog model of female orgasm. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), 116(41), 20267-20273. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1910295116
Rytkönen, K. T., Erkenbrack, E. M., Poutanen, M., Elo, L. L., Pavlicev, M., & Wagner, G. P. (2019). Decidualization of Human Endometrial Stromal Fibroblasts is a Multiphasic Process Involving Distinct Transcriptional Programs. Reproductive Sciences (RS), 26(3), 323-336. https://doi.org/10.1177/1933719118802056