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CLOE Autumn Symposium. Prof Anjali Goswami. The Shape of Life: A Deep-Time Perspective

26 September 2024, 3:00 pm–4:00 pm

cloe_autumn_symposium_w2024

This event is free.

Event Information

Open to

All

Cost

Free

Organiser

Ziheng Yang

The CLOE Autumn Symposium will celebrate Prof Anjali Goswami being made a fellow of the Royal Society. 

Title: The Shape of Life: A Deep-Time Perspective
Speaker: Prof Anjali Goswami
Location: G12, Torrington Place (1-19)
Time: 3pm-4pm
Reception will follow, location tbc

Everyone is welcome.

Abstract

What processes shape organismal diversity over large time scales? Approaches to this question can focus on many different factors, from ecology and life history to environmental change and extinction. Uniting these factors in a macroevolutionary framework is typically complicated by differences in the sources, types and scale of data collected, but open access 3D datasets have transformed this field in recent years.  Here, I will discuss the patterns of and influences on cranial evolution across Tetrapoda using a vast 3D phenomic dataset that spans >300 million years of evolution. While most large-scale studies of morphological evolution utilise relatively limited descriptors of morphology, surface sliding semi-landmark analysis allows for detailed quantification of complex 3D shapes, even across highly disparate taxa.  We analysed morphological evolution using a dense dataset of landmarks and sliding semi-landmarks for over 1500 species of living and extinct limbed vertebrates.  Patterns of cranial organisation are generally conserved within large clades, but clear shifts are evident across.  Comparing patterns across the diversity of living and extinct tetrapods, I will discuss differences in the relative effect sizes of developmental and ecological factors on skull shape variation and rate of evolution, as well as temporal trends in shape evolution. A unified approach to data collection allows direct comparison of disparate taxa, and demonstrates that ecology, life history, extinction events, and climate are all significant influences on cranial shape, though the magnitudes of their effects vary markedly across different vertebrate classes.

About the Speaker

Prof Anjali Goswami

at Natural History Museum

Anjali Goswami is an evolutionary biologist at the Natural History Museum, London, an honorary professor in the Department of Genetics, Evolution & Environment at University College London, and President of the Linnean Society of London. She received her B.Sc. from the University of Michigan in 1998 and her PhD from the University of Chicago 2005, and her expertise is in vertebrate evolution and development, particularly in the emerging area of evolutionary phenomics. She and her group develop and apply new approaches to capturing the complex three-dimensional shapes of organisms in order to reconstruct the evolution of biodiversity. Her work spans insects to dinosaurs, but her main interest is in the evolution of mammals. To fill key gaps in the palaeontological record, she has searched for fossils from Svalbard to Madagascar, with her primary fieldwork being based in South India. She is the recipient of the Linnean Society Bicentenary Medal, the Zoological Society of London Scientific Medal, the Hind Rattan Award, the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology Robert L. Carroll award, the Palaeontological Association President's Medal, and the Humanists UK Darwin Day Medal. Anjali was elected to the fellowship of the Royal Society of London in 2024.

More about Prof Anjali Goswami