Professor Philip Donoghue
B.Sc.(Leic.), M.Sc. (Sheff.), Ph.D.(Leic.)
Current positions
Professor of Palaeobiology
School of Earth Sciences
Contact
Press and media
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Research interests
My research is focused on the relationship between evolution and embryology, integrating living and fossil organisms, developmental biology, and knowledge of their evolutionary relationships, to provide an holistic understanding of major episodes in evolutionary history.
I have particular interest in the evolutionary emergence of vertebrates, and of ecdysozoans, but also in the evolutionary emergence of animals and plants more generally. This entails classical palaeobiology, but also molecular genetics – to calibrate the Tree of Life to time using molecular clock theory, and to determine the role of genetic regulators of development in effecting organismal-level evolutionary change.
My group has facilities for rock digestion, high-end computed tomography, animal culture facilities and a molecular laboratory for RNA and DNA library preparation, gene cloning, and in situ hybridisation.
Projects and supervisions
Research projects
Between rocks and clocks: evolutionary history of Hymenoptera during the radiation of flowering plants
Principal Investigator
Description
The order Hymenoptera encompasses ants, wasps, and bees and is a textbook example of a diverse clade, known from more than 120,000 living species, that display extraordinary morphological, taxonomic, and…Managing organisational unit
School of Earth SciencesDates
04/03/2024 to 31/05/2024
Evolutionary dynamics of Neuropterida and the Cretaceous Terrestrial Revolution
Principal Investigator
Managing organisational unit
School of Earth SciencesDates
01/04/2022 to 31/03/2024
Efficient Bayesian phylogenomic dating with new models of trait evolution and rich diversities of living and fossil species
Principal Investigator
Managing organisational unit
School of Earth SciencesDates
01/10/2020 to 30/09/2023
MSC fellowship - Humberto Ferron
Principal Investigator
Managing organisational unit
School of Earth SciencesDates
01/06/2019 to 30/05/2021
Thesis supervisions
Estimating a timescale for the tree of life using integrated fossil and genomic methods
Supervisors
Whole Genome Duplication and the Evolution of the Land Plant Body Plan
Supervisors
Palaeobiology and Preservation of the Ediacaran Weng'an Biota
Supervisors
Modelling fossil and molecular data to establish the timescale of animal evolution
Supervisors
Growth and Development in the Ediacaran Macrobiota
Supervisors
Investigating tricky nodes in the Tree of Life
Supervisors
Isolating evolutionary phenomena in analyses of disparity
Supervisors
Evolution of the Eumetazoan Body Plan
Supervisors
Publications
Recent publications
22/02/2024Cryogenian origins of multicellularity in Archaeplastida
Genome Biology and Evolution
Hagfish genome elucidates vertebrate whole-genome duplication events and their evolutionary consequences
Nature Ecology and Evolution
Testing hypotheses of pteraspid heterostracan feeding using computational fluid dynamics
Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology
The three-dimensionally articulated oral apparatus of a Devonian heterostracan sheds light on feeding in Palaeozoic jawless fishes
Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences
Streptophyte multicellularity, ecology, and the acclimatisation of plants to life on land
Current Biology