The implementation of the outgoing phase of this project in University of California, Berkeley, Museum of Paleontology, had two important factors. First, the development of novel datasets to analyse morphological and genetic diversity of marine invertebrate species. This used traditional methods and through collaboration with the nearby Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories, Advanced Light Source, using their micro-tomography synchrotron beamline. This has enabled three-dimensional modelling of structures inside mollusc shells never observed before, and led to further ongoing collaborations that will continue after the present project. Second, these data feed into computational modelling approaches, exploring the impacts of variable speciation and extinction rates through deep time on the resulting diversity of species on earth today.
The project has resulted in 31 public presentations at conferences and invited seminars, 20 papers published and available through open access, and 1 book. A symposium in January 2018 provided a knowledge transfer workshop and resulted in a published proceedings volume with 9 original papers from diverse perspectives with international contributors.
During the first phase of this project, to gather high-quality specimen material for analysis, Sigwart spend more than one month at sea on the Japanese research vessel Yokosuka and did a dive in a submersible to the bottom of the Indian Ocean, more than 3.3 km below the sea surface. The specimens gathered during that cruise, and collaborative experiments conducted onboard, directly contributed to the outputs of this action. Experiments performed at sea during that cruise were published in Year 3 of this project and were featured on the journal cover.
Now, data about living species diversity are being used to calibrate new computational models that simulate the evolution of species on earth, to develop new hypotheses about the interactions of speciation rates, extinction, and environmental change, which have resulted in journal articles published during this project and new hypotheses that will provide the basis for additional further research beyond.
