Australia's oldest jawed fishes: evolution, biostratigraphy and biogeography. The research focusses on a collection of disarticulated remains of placoderms, a group of extinct armoured fishes which dominated Devonian waters (410-354 Mya). The oldest Australian placoderm macroremains so far described are of late Pragian age (400 Mya), and recognized as a highly endemic fauna. An older limestone from New South Wales has yielded new material which includes sclerotic capsules and dermal plates of ....Australia's oldest jawed fishes: evolution, biostratigraphy and biogeography. The research focusses on a collection of disarticulated remains of placoderms, a group of extinct armoured fishes which dominated Devonian waters (410-354 Mya). The oldest Australian placoderm macroremains so far described are of late Pragian age (400 Mya), and recognized as a highly endemic fauna. An older limestone from New South Wales has yielded new material which includes sclerotic capsules and dermal plates of small placoderms. Earliest Devonian (Lochkovian) acanthodians and the new placoderms, unlike the younger taxa, seem closely related to coeval faunas from the circum-Arctic region. The material will help resolve relationships and distribution of these early jawed vertebrates.Read moreRead less
Fossils, rocks and early Cambrian clocks: calibrating body plan assembly and lineage splits in ancestral animals from Gondwana. The precise timing of when animal body plans evolved and rapidly diversified during the Cambrian Explosion remains mysterious. This project will investigate vast collections of exquisitely preserved early-middle Cambrian fossils from Australia to determine the precise order of evolutionary events at the root of the animal tree of life.
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE220101296
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$397,908.00
Summary
Diving into deep-time: macroevolutionary patterns of aquatic tetrapods. This project aims to compare and contrast the broad-scale evolutionary patterns of the disparate lineages of aquatic tetrapod (e.g. whales, penguins, plesiosaurs). This project expects to generate new knowledge by utilising cutting-edge methods from several fields, e.g. three-dimensional scans, phylogenetic comparative methods and functional morphology. Expected outcomes include multiple high-quality publications and the dev ....Diving into deep-time: macroevolutionary patterns of aquatic tetrapods. This project aims to compare and contrast the broad-scale evolutionary patterns of the disparate lineages of aquatic tetrapod (e.g. whales, penguins, plesiosaurs). This project expects to generate new knowledge by utilising cutting-edge methods from several fields, e.g. three-dimensional scans, phylogenetic comparative methods and functional morphology. Expected outcomes include multiple high-quality publications and the development of new local and international collaborations. This will provide significant benefits, including revealing aquatic tetrapod evolution on an unprecedented scale and a better understanding of how some of Australia’s most iconic animals respond to global change, helping inform eco-tourism and conservation policies.Read moreRead less
Integrating fossils and genomes to resolve the early evolution of snakes. This project aims to address a high-profile evolutionary controversy – the origin of snakes – by reconciling the anatomical and fossil evidence with the burgeoning genomic data. New genomic data surprisingly links snakes with the un-snakelike iguana, prompting claims that the genetic and the fossil/anatomical data are irreconcilable. The project aims to evaluate these key fossils, and reptile anatomy in general, in light o ....Integrating fossils and genomes to resolve the early evolution of snakes. This project aims to address a high-profile evolutionary controversy – the origin of snakes – by reconciling the anatomical and fossil evidence with the burgeoning genomic data. New genomic data surprisingly links snakes with the un-snakelike iguana, prompting claims that the genetic and the fossil/anatomical data are irreconcilable. The project aims to evaluate these key fossils, and reptile anatomy in general, in light of the new genomic tree. This has potential to greatly elucidate major evolutionary changes across the lizard-snake transition (for example, extensive mobility in the snake skull). The project also plans to assess the long-term evolutionary consequences of ‘snakiness’, such as the hypothesised irreversibility of limb loss, and increased resilience to mass extinction.Read moreRead less
Ancestral state reconstruction and the evolution of Australian marsupials. This project aims to investigate the diversification and evolvability of Australian marsupials, by enabling genomes, ecology and 3D skeletal shape to synergistically inform evolutionary inference. This project expects to generate new knowledge of the processes that have promoted and maintained marsupial biodiversity, by tracing their evolution across a fossil gap that spans half of their history. Expected outcomes of this ....Ancestral state reconstruction and the evolution of Australian marsupials. This project aims to investigate the diversification and evolvability of Australian marsupials, by enabling genomes, ecology and 3D skeletal shape to synergistically inform evolutionary inference. This project expects to generate new knowledge of the processes that have promoted and maintained marsupial biodiversity, by tracing their evolution across a fossil gap that spans half of their history. Expected outcomes of this project include improved methods for merging fossils into the tree of life and for reconstructing the ecology and morphology of ancestors on phylogenetic trees. This should provide significant benefits, such as a coherent evolutionary context for informing research on marsupial biology, ecology and conservation.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE140101879
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$309,660.00
Summary
Dispersal, diversity and survival: lessons from the fossil record. The ability of organisms to spread their genes may be key to their long-term survival. For example, birds survived the mass extinction of 65 million years ago, but their non-flying dinosaurian relatives did not. This project will use the fossil record to establish whether swimming or flying are key traits in long-term survival. This will be done by producing the first family tree for all extinct terrestrial vertebrates onto which ....Dispersal, diversity and survival: lessons from the fossil record. The ability of organisms to spread their genes may be key to their long-term survival. For example, birds survived the mass extinction of 65 million years ago, but their non-flying dinosaurian relatives did not. This project will use the fossil record to establish whether swimming or flying are key traits in long-term survival. This will be done by producing the first family tree for all extinct terrestrial vertebrates onto which geographic data will be mapped before a novel computational analysis shows how species moved between continents over the last 400 million years. The results may inform modern conservation issues, as changing climate means an organism's survival could be dependent on its ability to physically track shifting environments.Read moreRead less
Geomolecular dating with biologically relaxed clocks, and mammal evolution. This project aims to use DNA, fossils and biological cues to synergistically model evolutionary rate changes. Molecular dates allow direct comparison of evolutionary and ecological patterns and processes across the tree of life. However, current models struggle to identify the location and magnitude of molecular clock rate changes on phylogenies, often resulting in wildly inaccurate dates. Expected outcomes include impro ....Geomolecular dating with biologically relaxed clocks, and mammal evolution. This project aims to use DNA, fossils and biological cues to synergistically model evolutionary rate changes. Molecular dates allow direct comparison of evolutionary and ecological patterns and processes across the tree of life. However, current models struggle to identify the location and magnitude of molecular clock rate changes on phylogenies, often resulting in wildly inaccurate dates. Expected outcomes include improved dating accuracy, and a novel statistical framework for morphological data, which allows fossils to be more accurately merged into the tree of life. In turn, the project aims to resolve intense debate on the origins of marsupial and placental mammals, and to trace the responses of these two groups to past environmental changes.Read moreRead less
Dissecting the causes and consequences of non-genetic parental effects. This project aims to determine the consequences of paternal and sperm experience for offspring and the mechanisms by which they occur. This project will make unambiguous tests of paternal effects under field conditions and will unravel the molecular pathways by which they occur. The outcome will be a better understanding of how environmental effects are transmitted through the male line. This will provide significant benefit ....Dissecting the causes and consequences of non-genetic parental effects. This project aims to determine the consequences of paternal and sperm experience for offspring and the mechanisms by which they occur. This project will make unambiguous tests of paternal effects under field conditions and will unravel the molecular pathways by which they occur. The outcome will be a better understanding of how environmental effects are transmitted through the male line. This will provide significant benefits, such as implications for climate change impacts and reproductive technologies.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE130100470
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$375,000.00
Summary
Understanding mechanisms and functions of evolutionary divergence in innate immune genes. Microorganisms constantly challenge the immune systems of all multi-cellular organisms, and host immune genes must be able to co-evolve with microbes in order for a species to propagate. This project will investigate how host immune genes in a species evolve to enable that species to continue.
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE120102034
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$375,000.00
Summary
How did mammals evolve large brains? A multidisciplinary view from the pouch. This project applies novel data collection techniques to explain how the large brain sizes of today's mammals (including humans) are possible. The focus will be on brain structure, development, and evolution in the mostly Australian marsupials, whose ancestral mode of brain development makes them an ideal group for studies of brain size evolution.