Project description
Exploring how limbs transformed life on land
The four-limbed animals that first moved onto land succeeded where other fish failed. Tetrapods grew limbs not just for walking but also for vital functions like blood cell production. This adaptation allowed them to spread across various environments, unlike other fish that struggled to adapt to land. However, understanding how these complex changes occurred has been difficult with traditional methods. The ERC-funded LimbEvolution project aims to solve this mystery using cutting-edge 3D imaging and simulations. Specifically, it will examine how limbs evolved into three segments, how blood cell production moved into bones, and how these changes contributed to the success of tetrapods on land.
Objective
Tetrapods, i.e. four-limbed animals, are the only backboned animals to have truly conquered the land, and have achieved worldwide distribution in a wide range of environments. Several fish groups have attempted to colonise terrestrial habitats (e.g. mudskippers among ray-finned fish; lungfish among lobe-finned fish) but only tetrapods were able to initiate a large-scale radiation. What is the key to this success? Our limb skeletons have obviously played a crucial part, by allowing us to walk and support our weight outside of the water, but that is not their only function. For example, at some point during the early evolution of tetrapods, the haematopoietic (blood cell-producing) tissue transferred to the bone marrow; it has been suggested that this protected the production of blood cells from UV radiation and made it more efficient. This extraordinary multifunctionality evolved through successive microanatomical innovations, beginning 400 million years ago. The underlying reasons and processes are still unclear, partly because traditional palaeontological techniques have not been able to uncover the crucial changes in 3D microarchitecture from fin to limb. I will overcome these limitations using a novel cross-disciplinary approach based on state-of-the-art, three-dimensional, tomographic imaging techniques at high resolution. I will combine 3D modelling with virtual simulations of biomechanical stress, evidence of biomarkers and functional genomics to provide the first comprehensive picture of three major steps in the limb evolution: 1) the shaping of our limb into three segments, 2) the origin of blood-cell production in limb bones, and 3) the role of ossified mineralised ends in the exceptional locomotor radiations of tetrapods. This project will illuminate the process by which our limb skeletons became, not just structural props and locomotory levers, but essential powerhouses of cell manufacture without which we cannot survive.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
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Programme(s)
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
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Call for proposal
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Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2023-COG
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751 05 Uppsala
Sweden
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