PhD: Evolution of upper stem group arthropods

A four year PhD position is available, jointly supervised by Prof. Graham Budd (Uppsala) and Dr Javier Ortega-Hernández (Cambridge). The position will commence as soon as possible but after agreement with the successful candidate.

The reconstruction of the arthropod stem-group, largely from the Cambrian fossil record, has been one of the notable successes in our recovery of the history of major living groups. Nevertheless, although its broad outlines are now clear, several important parts of the tree remain poorly understood. This project intends to investigate the structure of the “upper stem-group”, which includes trilobites and their close relatives, and how they relate to the major extant groups of euarthropods (crustaceans, insects, chelicerates etc). This will in turn allow a more secure morphological rooting of the extant arthropod tree, and help resolve several key controversies such as the composition of the euarthropod head and limb evolution.

In the light of these new hypotheses, we intend the successful candidate to examine existing collections of (largely) Cambrian exceptionally preserved arthropods, as well as describe new material from the major Cambrian lagerstätten. The new data will be integrated into a new phylogeny.

We would also welcome candidates interested in a molecular approach to the topic where applicable (e.g. in fine-scale resolution of extant arthropod phylogenies).

The balance between the various aspects of the project will be determined on the basis of the applicants, and we thus welcome students interested in either or both fossil and molecular-based projects. The project offers training in fossil preparation and analytical techniques including phylogenetic analysis, and, if applicable, molecular techniques including cloning and in situ hybridization.