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Prof Matthew Wills, Dr Araxi Urrutia
Applications accepted all year round
Self-Funded PhD Students Only
About the Project
Supervisory team:
Matthew Wills (Biology & Biochemistry, Bath)
Araxi Urrutia (Biology & Biochemistry, Bath)
Mark Wilkinson (Natural History Museum, London)
Katie Davis (Biology & Biochemistry, Bath)
Why construct supertrees? The development of new supertree methods and the construction of supertrees for particular clades is a burgeoning area of research in systematics. Although the rate at which phylogenomic data can be acquired is increasing exponentially, fully inclusive supermatrix phylogenies of many thousands of terminals are still some years away. Supertrees offer the means to meta-analytically synthesise published trees, simultaneously resolving conflict between them using a variety of objective optimality functions. They enable researchers to see the state of published knowledge, as well as being essential for macroevolutionary, macroecological, comparative and conservation studies that rely upon complete species phylogenies.
Why arthropods? Arthropods are the most abundant and diverse of all animal phyla containing an estimated 30 million species. They have evolved to fill virtually every habitat and exploit almost all imaginable lifestyles. Despite a century of study, there is still no consensus on their relationships, and their radiation has been the focus of debates concerning the overall pattern of the diversification of life. Arthropods are of great economic value and are also a vital component of many ecosystems. Moreover, a supertree of all arthropods has never been attempted before.
What does this project entail? The successful candidate will be part of collaborative team from the University of Bath and the Natural History Museum in London. The student will apply a variety of established and novel supertree methods to a selection of arthropod clades and benchmark their performance. They will also explore alternative supermatrix approaches and write scripts for their automation. The student will receive training in supertree methods, bioinformatics, and arthropod systematics, as well as in the use of programming languages including Perl, Python, MySQL and R.
Matthew Wills (Biology & Biochemistry, Bath)
Araxi Urrutia (Biology & Biochemistry, Bath)
Mark Wilkinson (Natural History Museum, London)
Katie Davis (Biology & Biochemistry, Bath)
Why construct supertrees? The development of new supertree methods and the construction of supertrees for particular clades is a burgeoning area of research in systematics. Although the rate at which phylogenomic data can be acquired is increasing exponentially, fully inclusive supermatrix phylogenies of many thousands of terminals are still some years away. Supertrees offer the means to meta-analytically synthesise published trees, simultaneously resolving conflict between them using a variety of objective optimality functions. They enable researchers to see the state of published knowledge, as well as being essential for macroevolutionary, macroecological, comparative and conservation studies that rely upon complete species phylogenies.
Why arthropods? Arthropods are the most abundant and diverse of all animal phyla containing an estimated 30 million species. They have evolved to fill virtually every habitat and exploit almost all imaginable lifestyles. Despite a century of study, there is still no consensus on their relationships, and their radiation has been the focus of debates concerning the overall pattern of the diversification of life. Arthropods are of great economic value and are also a vital component of many ecosystems. Moreover, a supertree of all arthropods has never been attempted before.
What does this project entail? The successful candidate will be part of collaborative team from the University of Bath and the Natural History Museum in London. The student will apply a variety of established and novel supertree methods to a selection of arthropod clades and benchmark their performance. They will also explore alternative supermatrix approaches and write scripts for their automation. The student will receive training in supertree methods, bioinformatics, and arthropod systematics, as well as in the use of programming languages including Perl, Python, MySQL and R.
Funding Notes
**We welcome year-round applications from self-funded students and applicants seeking their own funding**
There may be some highly-competitive tuition fee waiver scholarships available for excellent candidates, but these are very limited and will only cover a portion of the tuition fees. The successful candidates would need to demonstrate that they can cover their own living costs through the whole duration of their studies.
For more information about available PhD projects in the department of Biology and Biochemistry at the University of Bath, please see: http://www.bath.ac.uk/bio-sci/postgraduate/phd-projects/
There may be some highly-competitive tuition fee waiver scholarships available for excellent candidates, but these are very limited and will only cover a portion of the tuition fees. The successful candidates would need to demonstrate that they can cover their own living costs through the whole duration of their studies.
For more information about available PhD projects in the department of Biology and Biochemistry at the University of Bath, please see: http://www.bath.ac.uk/bio-sci/postgraduate/phd-projects/
