Individuals should benefit from settling in habitats that maximise their fitness, a form of dispersal plasticity named habitat choice. Theory predicts that habitat choice can deeply modify the consequences of dispersal for ecological and evolutionary dynamics compared to the often-assumed random dispersal. However, our empirical knowledge of the drivers of habitat choice evolution and its ecological consequences remains rudimentary. This research project aims at identifying the environmental conditions favouring habitat choice evolution and at quantifying its consequences for the dynamics of populations. To do so, we will adopt an experimental approach using spatially explicit microcosms of an actively dispersing ciliate. This experimental system offers an excellent opportunity to validate or reject theoretically-derived predictions over multiple generations and thus to provide breakthrough advances about the environmental drivers and consequences of dispersal evolution.