About the project
This project will advance our understanding of biodiversity patterns in the sea, with a focus in deep-sea echinoderms, using a multidisciplinary approach to investigate drivers of biodiversity and predict changes in response to changing environmental conditions.
We currently face a triple planetary crisis with pollution, climate change and biodiversity loss. Understanding evolutionary histories can provide important information on how species are related, how they have adapted to past changes, and to identify unique lineages, helping us predict biodiversity changes with climate change and prioritise areas for conservation.
In recent decades, technological advances have allowed increased exploration of the deep sea, and DNA sequencing techniques have become more cost-efficient and capable of generating large datasets that can resolve deep-phylogenetic relationships.
Members of the class Asteroidea are important component of benthic ecosystems, inhabiting from intertidal to abyssal depths, have a global distribution and are functionally diverse, with different feeding strategies, locomotion and reproduction.
This project will aim to investigate the evolutionary history of a group of deep-sea seastars. To achieve this goal, the student will use both recently collected samples and historical material from the Natural History Museum and the Discovery Collections. The student will generate phylogenomic data using innovative molecular techniques.
Additionally, the student will expand an existing distributional database by identifying/analysing new material and material housed in other scientific collections incorporating high-resolution imaging. The student will identify new species to science and will conduct formal species descriptions. Distributional data and traits will be mapped on to the phylogenomic tree to examine patterns of trait evolution and correlations with ecological and/or functional transitions.
Training
The student will gain experience in different molecular techniques including generation of short barcode sequences through Sanger sequencing, to whole genome sequencing techniques using Next Generation Sequencing, PCR.
The student will also receive training in bioinformatics, processing of sequence reads, phylogenetic reconstruction, comparative phylogenetics and biogeographic analyses, and large data handling using R and Python.
The student will be trained by taxonomic experts and will learn imaging techniques including Scanning Electron Microscopy and µ-CT (micro-computed tomography), and high-quality image processing (Photoshop/Illustrator).
Supervisors
Your will be supervised by Dr Guadalupe Bribiesca Contreras (lead supervisor) and Dr Tammy Horton from the National Oceanography Centre, alongside Dr Jeff Thompson from the University of Southampton and Dr Hugh Carter.
