Ecology and evolution of early life on land: arthropod diversity and interactions

Additional Supervisors

Dr. Greg Edgecombe FRS, Department of Earth Sciences, the Natural History Museum,
Dr. Paul Kenrick, Department of Earth Sciences, the Natural History Museum

Location: University of Exeter, Penryn Campus, Penryn, Cornwall TR10 9FE

This project is one of a number that are in competition for funding from the NERC Great Western Four+ Doctoral Training Partnership (GW4+ DTP). The GW4+ DTP consists of the Great Western Four alliance of the University of Bath, University of Bristol, Cardiff University and the University of Exeter plus five Research Organisation partners: British Antarctic Survey, British Geological Survey, Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, the Natural History Museum and Plymouth Marine Laboratory. The partnership aims to provide a broad training in earth and environmental sciences, designed to train tomorrow’s leaders in earth and environmental science.

For further details about the programme please see http://nercgw4plus.ac.uk/

Project details

The Rhynie chert is an Early Devonian geological site in Scotland (circa 407 million-years old), which preserves the oldest known land ecosystem, including plants, animals, fungi, algae and bacteria. The quality of fossil preservation in the Rhynie chert is astonishing, encompassing the most intact fossilised remains from a Palaeozoic terrestrial ecosystem, including preservation of cellular and ultrastructural details.

Together, this fossil assemblage provides crucial insights into early life on land. In the past 100 years, research on the Rhynie chert has largely focused on its land plant-based components, but there are still major gaps in our understanding of its fauna and environment. However, in the past few years, the successful application of new methods and analytical techniques (e.g. Confocal Laser Scanning Microscopy) have prompted fundamental breakthroughs in fungal research, demonstrating the importance of interactions between fungi and the plant and animal elements of the system.

We will employ the latest imaging and image processing techniques to systematically investigate the fauna of the Rhynie chert in order to gain a fuller picture of the biodiversity and the nature of the interactions between different organisms and their palaeoenvironments.

Project Aims:

Determine the full biodiversity of the invertebrate fauna in the Rhynie chert
Reveal detailed anatomical structures of these animals and reconstruct them
Contribute to our understanding of early land colonisation by invertebrates
Identify the interactions between invertebrate animals and their associated plants and fungi
Investigate the palaeoenvironment and palaeoecology of the Rhynie chert

Project Methods:

Examine the huge thin section collection of Rhynie chert material at the Natural History Museum in London, the Hunterian Museum, the University of Aberdeen and the University of Münster
Process field collections of Rhynie chert at the Natural History Museum
Using new imaging and analytical techniques to review the detailed structures of the organisms in the thin sections, such as confocal laser scanning microscopy
Carrying out 3D reconstruction of these ancient organisms and their community
Using statistical and other ecological research methods, investigate the palaeoecology of the Rhynie chert fossil bed
The doctoral researcher in this project is encouraged to assist in developing the overall research direction and experimental designs.

Training

The researcher will receive training in palaeontologcial research methods, microscope-based imaging techniques and associated software (e.g., confocal laser scanning microscopy), statistical analysis, preparation of fossil materials and research and outreach work in museums. The student will have the opportunity to visit important museum and university collections in the UK and Germany. All the skills they will learn are highly transferrable and will be useful to them irrespective of their precise career path within evolutionary biology and biological/environmental/palaeobiological sciences more generally