Julia Sigwart

My research focusses on the evolution of marine biodiversity. Adaptive features, which are relevant to each particular species, shape how they respond to environmental perturbations, in the modern world and in the fossil record. We use tomography (right) to visualise animal adaptations in 3D and understand the world from other organisms' points of view.

Understanding evolutionary radiations, survivorship, and the way animals respond to environmental change, require high resolution data from multiple disciplines. The work in my research group crosses genetics, morphology, anatomy, neurobiology, physiology, computational modelling, and experimental approaches, to understand the drivers for species diversity.

Some of these are discussed in my recent book, What Species Mean: A User's Guide to the Units of Biodiversity, published by CRC/Taylor & Francis in early 2018.