PhD: The origin and early evolution of arthropods: an experimental approach

The Cambrian origin and diversification of animals is a major event in the history of life on earth. Our understanding of this event is almost entirely reliant on fossils from this period, but interpreting them is fraught with difficulty; many of the relevant organisms were soft-bodied and as such, their tissues have been transformed and become incomplete during the processes of decay and fossilization. Recent focus on soft tissue preservation has revealed that patterns of missing data can distort evolutionary inferences (Sansom et al. 2010, Sansom and Wills 2013) and that some fossils may yield previously unanticipated levels of anatomical detail, such as neural and vascular tissues (Edgecombe et al. 2015, Sansom 2016). The aim of this project is to experimentally investigate the processes of decay and preservation that take place during fossilization of arthropods. The results will serve as a direct test of the anatomy and affinity of the important Cambrian fossil arthropods, and as such, provide insight into the mode and tempo this important evolutionary event. Furthermore, it will serve as an assessment of the validity of experimental taphonomy more generally.