torsdag den 2. august 2012

Quick update


The next two years I will be working on the molecular and morphological phylogeny of the Limacodidae. The Post_Doc project is in collaboration with Thomas Simonsen (Natural History Museum of London), Naomi Pierce (Department of Evolutionary and Organismic Biology Harvard) and Marc Epstein (Department of Food and Agriculture Sacramento California). It is going to be a good project if I can get the taxa I need (mainly focusing on the African, Asian and Australian fauna). After the phylogeny is done and compared to the current research, most of which is done by the Leptree group and a future paper by Weller er al. I will be able to start looking at the autapomorphic locomotion found in the caterpillars of this charismatic family.
                      What I find so interesting about the Limacodidae is their additional abdominal prolegs, the abdominal appendage reduction in some taxa and their creeping locomotion that must have some very derived musculature behind it. I am also greatly looking forward to possible work on the semi fluid silk of the family and to the several field trips that are already being planned.
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Past and present.

With the PhD done I am now in the midst of a transition in my life. There are the manuscripts from the PhD thesis that need to be updated and prepared for publishing, there is also a new Post-doc at the Natural History Museum of London, several fieldtrips and the ICE conference that need to be planned. I feel almost content with the results achieved in the PhD. Currently one paper is published and within the next months I should have two more coming out. All the papers are on the morphology of some of the basalmost lepidopteran larvae and deal specifically with the evolution and ground plan characteristics. In the process of writing the thesis I have become quite intrigued with the locomotion of caterpillars and especially with the musculature that drive the locomotion. One of the more fascinating things is the information that lies in the muscular arrangements and the several different secondary locomotory structures that caterpillars have.

Keep an eye on the Reference section where I will update my publications and also have a link to my Mendeley profile so you can see my literature collection.