My research is governed by the question "how did the diversity of animals we see around us evolve?". Studying biodiversity, particularly morphological diversity, in the 21st century requires cutting-edge tools. I will discuss how I use laser scanning and X-ray micro CT to capture detailed external and internal morphology of museum specimens (often rare or endangered species) to build large virtual libraries of species. Then I will talk about how I use geometric morphometrics (statistical analysis of shape, a field stemming from geometry and spatial statistics) to accurately characterise the shape of biological structures (e.g., skulls, limb bones, or egg shells) from these libraries. Finally I will give examples of how I use this shape data to answer questions about evolution.
Room:
Le Couteur Seminar Room 3.17