Periodic Reporting for period 1 - EARtH (Exploring the Australian Reptile Hypervolume: Assembly and evolution of a continental fauna)
Reporting period: 2022-11-01 to 2024-10-31
The Marie Skłodowska Curie Action "Exploring the Australian Reptile Hypervolume" looks at how lizards and snakes have evolved in the world's richest reptile hotspot, Australia. The research investigates how the more than 1,000 species of lizards and snakes have come to look they way they look, live where they live, and develop a cohesive tree-of-life that links these many unique animals. Archetypic lizards and snakes would be familiar to most people, but the Australian fauna also includes extreme shapes that can provide insight into the processes of evolution. The project investigates how these processes progress by observing and documenting the diversity of Australian reptiles, and then asking questions like 'how does a gecko become limbless?', 'why do some skinks become gigantic?', and 'how does a frill of a frilled lizard evolve?'.
These questions sound basic, but are difficult to quantify in evolutionary terms. To do so, I collected an encompassing morphological dataset (measurements of the head, body, limbs, and tail) that encapsulates tens of millions of years of evolution. I call this high-dimensional dataset the 'hypervolume'. Investigating these questions are foundational for our understanding of how evolution proceeds. Australia in particular, is a fantastic natural laboratory for studying evolution. Last connected to Antarctica 40 million years ago, Australia has long been separated from the other continents, and so has acted as a contained space for the evolution of many different plants and animals. Understanding these ideas presents a natural progression from evolutionary minds like Charles Darwin, George Gaylord Simpson, and Stephen J. Gould, who captured the minds of scientists and the general public.
The objectives of this MSCA have focused on (1) understanding evolution in high dimensional spaces using many measurments, (2) determining the pace and consistency of evolution, and (3) quantifying the morphological diversity of Australian reptiles. Through these objectives, I have also engaged in expanding my research program and developing curatorial skills that will further my career.
These questions sound basic, but are difficult to quantify in evolutionary terms. To do so, I collected an encompassing morphological dataset (measurements of the head, body, limbs, and tail) that encapsulates tens of millions of years of evolution. I call this high-dimensional dataset the 'hypervolume'. Investigating these questions are foundational for our understanding of how evolution proceeds. Australia in particular, is a fantastic natural laboratory for studying evolution. Last connected to Antarctica 40 million years ago, Australia has long been separated from the other continents, and so has acted as a contained space for the evolution of many different plants and animals. Understanding these ideas presents a natural progression from evolutionary minds like Charles Darwin, George Gaylord Simpson, and Stephen J. Gould, who captured the minds of scientists and the general public.
The objectives of this MSCA have focused on (1) understanding evolution in high dimensional spaces using many measurments, (2) determining the pace and consistency of evolution, and (3) quantifying the morphological diversity of Australian reptiles. Through these objectives, I have also engaged in expanding my research program and developing curatorial skills that will further my career.
Work for this MSCA focused on three research objectives and five training objectives. The three research objectives aimed to (1) build and explore the Australian reptile hypervolume, and investigate how (2) biotic and (3) abiotic influences shaped the hypervolume. These objectives were largely accomplished, and include 21 measurements taken from more than 6,200 reptile specimens covering more than 970 species. To investigate these data, I built an analytical framework that has been used in three published papers, and additional forthcoming projects from myself, colleagues, and unassociated researchers. Importantly, the dataset generated under this MSCA is an enormous resource which will fuel research by myself and many others for years to come.
To address the training objectives, I embedded myself deeply in the community at the Natural History Museum. I attended workshops on data handling and reproducibility, spent more than 100 hours curating the amphibian and reptile collections, and donated more than 15 hours to science communication and publich outreach. This included recording videos for five separate outreach programs.
To address the training objectives, I embedded myself deeply in the community at the Natural History Museum. I attended workshops on data handling and reproducibility, spent more than 100 hours curating the amphibian and reptile collections, and donated more than 15 hours to science communication and publich outreach. This included recording videos for five separate outreach programs.
Exploring the Australian Reptile Hypervolume has pushed forward the field of evolutionary research in reptiles by daring to generate a world class dataset for the world's most diverse vertebrate group (more than 11,000 species). This progress has worked towards generating a dataset comparable to that in birds and mammals, and which will provide an invaluable resource for many additional researchers. Importantly, this has motivated similar initiatives in other geographic areas, which can be used modularly, and integrated to push our understanding of reptile evolution forward. The study of these deep time patterns, what we call 'macroevolution', is an attractive field because many of the conclusions are intuitive and they inform us about the natural world around us. As a result, they are easy to communicate and popular in science communication, evidenced by diverse coverage of the results of this MSCA.