Research project topics
A skeletal reconstruction of Camarasaurus, a Sauropod dinosaur which lived during the Upper Jurassic period, 140 to 150 million years ago. Fossils have been found mainly North America, and in Portugal.
Some examples of recent/possible topics for research projects include:
Natural History Museum
- 3D computational modelling of locomotor muscle moment arms in a bipedal ornithopod dinosaur: implications for ornithischian dinosaur locomotion.
- How robust is the Tree of Life based on SSU rRNA genes?
- Interaction of oil-collecting bees and their host-plants in South Africa – is there a geographical mosaic of co-evolution?
- The impact of the rise of the Himalaya on the plant diversity of SouthEast Asia
- Diversification of seed-free land plants under climate fluctuations: Polyploidy, reproductive biology, and cryptic species
- Genes and genomes in parasitic flatworms: understanding their diversity and evolution through comparative approaches
- Eukaryotic diversity in ground water boreholes: an isolated and specialised community?
- Ecological and phylogenetic signals from weevil proventriculus morphology: dead wood or the tree of life?
- Assessing the composition of insect communities with next-generation sequencing methods
- Interaction of oil-collecting bees and their host-plants in South Africa – is there a geographical mosaic of co-evolution?
- The evolution of colour in subterranean amphibians
- The role of parasites in conservation.
UCL
Projects are in the Department of Genetics, Evolution & Environment
- Primate extinction dynamics: ecological responses to past human impacts in China
- Cope's rule and big islands: body size evolution in Diprotodontia
- Specialization, shape, and survivorship: which mammals are built to last?
- Plants and climate change: the effect of temperature on life-history traits
- Ecology of Lake Tanganyika fish radiations
- Patterns of sperm competition in stalk-eyed flies
- Phenotypic and molecular correlates of sex-specific fitness in Drosophila melanogaster
- Evolution of larval forms: insights from echinoderm larval skeleton
- Analysing genetic and phenotypic diversity in fission yeast
Institute of Zoology
- Reconstructing the ecology and niche breadth of extinct island rodents - implications for understanding extinction processes and restoration of island ecosystems.
- Phylogeography of critically endangered Chinese giant salamanders - using historical museum samples to identify evolutionarily significant populations for conservation.
- Species concepts and species diversity in extinct Caribbean mammals using morphometric analysis.