Reconstructing life cycles of ancient marine reef animals
Seth Finnegan, Professor
Integrative Biology
Applications for Spring 2024 are closed for this project.
Besides coral, marine reefs are made up of many other strange invertebrates, including the little-known “moss animal”, or bryozoan. These abundant, microscopic filter-feeders grow in colonies and build elaborate domes, lacework, and tree-like structures on the ocean floor, from the intertidal to the abyss, from the poles to the equator. Bryozoans have survived this way for at least 500 million years, partly because they are versatile and adaptable. In a pinch, not only do they produce hundreds of larvae that can swim to safe habitat, but if broken into pieces, all the fragments can live on independently. They pull off this hat trick by compromising with one another – different parts of a colony specialize in different tasks – but every ecological survival strategy comes with its costs and benefits. Our goal is to find what life cycle strategies work best in different marine habitats, and to see when habitat change causes bryozoans to adapt, generate new species, or go extinct. We do this through some image detective work; we interpret bryozoan colonies’ life cycles from the morphology of their fossils.
Role: Working on this project entails sorting and photographing fossil bryozoans with a powerful digital microscope, and then learning to identify and label the parts of a bryozoan.
Qualifications: So long as they are delighted enough by the tiny, bizarre creatures to find the somewhat tedious work engaging, students without prior research experience are encouraged to apply. Please indicate in your application how many hours per week you could commit and whether you would be interested in developing an independent research project.
Day-to-day supervisor for this project: Maya Samuels-Fair
Hours: to be negotiated
Biological & Health Sciences