
Professor Philip Donoghue
B.Sc.(Leic.), M.Sc. (Sheff.), Ph.D.(Leic.)
Current positions
Professor of Palaeobiology
School of Earth Sciences
Contact
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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
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
Reconciling disparate perspectives on the evolution of disparity
Principal Investigator
Managing organisational unit
School of Earth SciencesDates
01/04/2017 to 31/03/2018
Neoproterozoic - Phanerozoic transition
Principal Investigator
Managing organisational unit
School of Earth SciencesDates
09/01/2017 to 31/07/2022
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
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
01/02/2023Constraining whole-genome duplication events in geological time
Polyploidy: Methods and Protocols
An evolutionary timescale for Bacteria calibrated using the Great Oxidation Event
A timescale for placental mammal diversification based on Bayesian modeling of the fossil record
Current Biology
Defining eukaryotes to dissect eukaryogenesis
Current Biology
Evolution of phenotypic disparity in the plant kingdom
Nature Plants