Objective
One of the most dramatic events in the history of life on Earth was the emergence of animals after over 3 billion years of just microbial life. Yet the anatomy of the earliest animals, first found in the Ediacaran time period 575 million years ago, is significantly different to all life that followed. While we know they were animals, their unique anatomies have hampered our understanding of what drove their evolution. REVEAL will bring together geochemistry, palaeontology and evolutionary biology to create an innovative framework for understanding early animal evolution – specifically 1) What the patterns of early animal evolution were; 2) How selection acted upon these early animals; and 3) Why these adaptations occurred. REVEAL will leverage innovative laser-scanning protocols to fully record the fossils from 575–560 million years ago; coupled with geochemical analyses to capture changes in carbon cycling and ocean oxygenation, this project will fully document the early animal biosphere. This data will be used to determine What the biodiversity and environmental changes were. To determine How selection acted on early animals, REVEAL will capitalise on the in-situ, census preservation of Ediacaran animals to quantify fitness as the mean number of offspring within clonal reproductive clusters and identify the key traits for evolution as the ones that correlate with the best competitive ability. These trait-fitness associations will be used to quantify the type and strength of selection and determine how phenotypes and the adaptive landscape changed over the first 15 million years of animal life. Finally, to determine the most likely causal processes underlying early animal diversification we will test the relative influences of abiotic and biotic variables on traits to understand Why animals diversified during this time. Taken together this project will REVEAL the What, How and Why for early animals, determining the mechanisms and drivers of early animal evolution.
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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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
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.
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.
Funding Scheme
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.
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.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2025-COG
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
CB2 1TN CAMBRIDGE
United Kingdom
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.