Tuesday 9 September 2014

FWO Success! A new direction for the project

Success! 

Last June I learned that my application for a 4 year project specialising in morphometrics and osteology of the forelimb of Perissodactyla (horses and their relatives) was approved, and I therefore "began" my PhD afresh in October...2014...yes, ok, I have been sitting on this one for a while!

Obviously, this is not entirely accurate - I have not in fact "started again", as I have already begun my PhD sponsored by the grant awarded to my supervisor Dr. Sandra Nauwelaerts. This project is looking at gait analysis in perissodactlys, recently working on Grevy's Zebra, Malayan and Lowland tapirs. From October 2014, I began taking the project in a brand new direction, which is very exciting. With additional funding for an extra year, this has offered me a great opportunity to get the very best out of the project, and test some very interesting biological questions regarding perissodactyl locomotor mechanics and morphological evolution.


My FWO (Fonds voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek) grant allows me to pursue an osteological and morphometric avenue of research. This new funding is enabling me to focus my energies on collecting museum samples for scanning, and analysing the scanned material using 3D landmark analyses, testing for integration and phylogenetic/ecological signal. 

The sub-project I am now working on will look to assess the morphological variation within the forelimbs of extant tapirs. For those who are not aware, tapirs are primitive, long-nosed, pig-like relatives of rhinos and horses! There are five extant species: The large Malayan tapir; the Central American Baird's Tapir; the relatively well known Lowland Tapir; the small, woolly Mountain Tapir; and the recently described Kabomani, or Little Black Tapir (link to Scientific American article: Tetrapod Zoology: new-living-species-of-tapir.)
Currently, I am assessing the morhological differences within the forelimb skeleton of modern tapirs, looking to find morphological differences using 3D morphometrics to show up variation not previously described. This way, we hope to result in a morphometric 'tool-box' for assessing museum specimens of tapirs without invasive sampling! So far we have fully scanned sixteen specimens, with plenty more to come. Here is a chance for me to thank the museums from Berlin (Museum fur Naturkunde), Vienna (Naturhistoriches Museum Wien), Paris (Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle) and Leiden (Naturalis Biodiversity Centre), in addition to Mr. Luc Tyteca, a private collector who has provided invaluable support to the project so far! To give you a sense of the scans we have taken, here is a rendering of a limb from a Baird's tapir I recently processed in Blender:

Render of RMMNH 43495 Tapirus bairdii, courtesy of the Naturalis Biodiversity Centre, Leiden, NL

Ciao for now readers - I very much appreciate your time if you bothered to read this far! Next blog will be a review of my excursion to Barcelona in September!

Until then, goedenavond and good night :)


No comments:

Post a Comment