There are three postdoc opportunities to join our interdisciplinary Sinergia project examining the evolution of arthropod moulting, by integrating paleontological, morphological, molecular and genomic data. Two postdocs are available at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, and a third postdoc at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. All positions are for a maximum of 4 years. These postdocs will join an international team of 4 labs, including the ANOM Lab, the labs of Prof. Marc Robinson-Rechavi and Prof. Robert Waterhouse at UNIL, and the lab of Prof. Ariel Chipman at Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
We are seeking three PhD students for an interdisciplinary project examining the evolution of arthropod moulting, by integrating paleontological, morphological, molecular and genomic data. Two posts are available at the Department of Ecology and Evolution (DEE) and one at the Institute of Earth Sciences, all for a maximum of 4 years. These positions are part of a Sinergia project funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation, which is a collaboration between Prof. Allison Daley of ANOM Lab, Prof. Marc Robinson-Rechavi (DEE), Prof. Robert Waterhouse (DEE) and Prof. Ariel Chipman (Hebrew University of Jerusalem). Find more information about how to submit your application here: bit.ly/2NDk6Cz
Moulted exoskeleton of Dalmanitina showing typical configuration with the head off. Specimen from the National Museum, Prague.
Cicada in the process of moulting. Imaged by dankeck, licensed under CC0-1.0.
Published today in the open access peer-reviewed journal PeerJ, a collaborative work on Marjum Formation radiodonts involving Allison Daley and lead authors Stephen Pates and Rudy Lerosey-Aubril (Harvard), along with Javier Ortega-Hernández (Harvard), Carlo Kier and Enrico Bonino (Back to the Past Museum). This Cambrian (Drumian) lagerstätten is located in the House Range in Utah. Our publication quadrupled the diversity of known radiodonts from the Marjum Biota, including the genera Peytoia, Caryosyntrips and Pahvantia, as well as a completely new taxon Buccaspinea cooperi. Some serious eye candy in this publication, with lots of radiodont fossil photos and a gorgeous paleoart reconstruction of the Marjum Formation seafloor by Holly Sullivan (www.sulscientific.com). Check out the paper at : https://peerj.com/articles/10509/#aff-3
Artistic reconstruction of the Cambrian (Drumian) Marjum biota in the House Range of Utah, USA, including radiodont components. http://www.sulscientific.comCredit: Holly Sullivan (www.sulscientific.com).
Lukáš Laibl, who has been working in ANOM Lab as a Post-doc for over two years, was recently awarded by a research funding from the Czech Science Foundation. His three years research project will explore developmental aspects in fossil arthropods during Cambrian explosion and Ordovician biodiversification. Such a research is essential to understanding macro evolutionary patterns in developmental biology and how global ecosystem changes affect organisms. Lukáš will finish his work here in Lausanne in April 2020, but he plans to continue his ongoing collaboration with ANOM Lab.
In a paper published this week in Geological Magazine, Pierre Gueriau, ANOM Lab External Collaborator Greg Edgecombe and co-workers describe eurypterids (‘sea scorpions’) from the Upper Devonian aquatic continental ecosystem of Strud, Belgium. The material consists of semi-articulated juvenile specimens assigned to Hardieopteridae recovered from pool and floodplain deposits, as well as larger isolated fragments likely of adult identity recovered from a higher energy fluvial environment. This apparent habitat partitioning reveals, as already suggested for some Carboniferous eurypterids, that juveniles have developed separate from adult populations in ‘nursery’ pools, which keep them safe from predators (fish) and give access to prey (small branchiopods and/or their eggs), before migrating to rivers during periods of flooding, or, though unlikely, by traversing land to reach adjacent rivers. The discovery of such a life habit among the Strud eurypterids is important as it indicates that this behavior may have been common among freshwater eurypterid groups, and highlights the complexity of the earliest continental biocenoses.
Juvenile eurypterid from the Late Devonian of Strud, Belgium, and associated branchiopod crustaceans in temporary pond deposits (notostracan, dotted arrow; spinicaudatans, solid arrows). Scale bars 5 mm.
