The axial skeleton is of great functional importance for locomotion in vertebrates. Vertebrae are critical skeletal bones of the axial skeleton, and the evolutionary change of vertebral counts, proportions, and shape has occurred numerous times during vertebrate diversification. For example, large numbers of thoracic vertebrae support the elongated body axis of snakes. In contrast, giraffes increase the growth rate of their cervical vertebrae relative to their other vertebrae to support their extraordinarily long necks. Diverse vertebral counts and proportions are found in Lake Malawi cichlids, a morphologically, ecologically, and behaviourally diverse ray-finned fish (teleost) family that has undergone an explosive adaptive radiation (>850 species), from a single common ancestor, over the last one million years. Lake Malawi cichlids are extremely closely related, differing genetically by an average of just 0.19-0.27%, comfortably within the range of genetic variation between human populations. Understanding how developmental mechanisms underpinning vertebral morphology have been modified in a background with limited genetic variation, in short evolutionary time, is essential in determining how vertebrates have evolved remarkable body plan diversity.
I am a DPhil student on the BBSRC Interdisciplinary Biosciences DTP with a background in biochemistry/molecular biology, genetics and (evolutionary) developmental biology. I integrate experimental embryology, including gene expression and regulation studies, primarily of anterior-posterior axis patterning, with 3D geometric morphometric analysis of Lake Malawi cichlids' vertebral columns to understand how morphological variation can arise in a genetically homogenous background. I split my time between experimental and animal husbandry work, including breeding and hybridising Lake Malawi cichlids - based in the lab of Dr Berta Verd, in the Department of Zoology and 3D geometric morphometric analysis of cichlid skeletons with Dr Roger Benson, in the Department of Earth Sciences and Paleobiology group.
