Tapeworms are a group of more than 10,000 known species adversely affecting the health of both ourselves and our domesticated animals. Their complex life histories centre on the maintenance of a germinative 'neck' region that produces a continuous chain of segments throughout their lives, each replete with male and female reproductive organs capable of producing an enormous number of new infections. Genetic mechanisms underpinning their development are unknown, but have implications for both understanding novel means of therapeutic intervention as well as understanding basic developmental processes in the animal kingdom. This research will examine the roles of Hox and other developmental genes that act to coordinate embryonic axial patterning and other aspects of development throughout the animal kingdom (e.g. establishing which end will develop into the 'head' and which into the 'tail'). By understanding the actions of these genes, this research will resolve fundamental questions regarding how tapeworms became segmented to enable their parasitic lifestyle and how Hox genes are used in the complex development of a parasitic animal. In turn, this will provide a platform for future research on development in other parasitic flatworm groups.
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The evolution of life on Earth has been tightly linked to the development of the planet's oceans and to its climate system. Scientists have built up a picture of Earth history, and of the animals and plants of past times, through detailed examination of ancient rock strata that have accumulated on the continents and in the oceans over the ages. Long periods of relative quiescence and of gradual change were punctuated by shorter intervals when Earth's environment changed abruptly. Intervals of rapid environmental change were often accompanied by unusually high levels of species extinctions and of changes in diversity, and were often followed by new patterns of species evolution. One well established aspect of Earth history is that past climates were often much warmer than at present. Furthermore, it is almost universally accepted that climate and mean global temperature are intimately related to the level of atmospheric CO2, albeit in a complex way. But no matter what the precise nature of the climate-CO2 relationship, one consequence of global warmth is that seawater oxygen levels are expected to be relatively low, for two reasons. The first is that all gases - including oxygen - are less soluble in warmer liquids than in cooler ones; the second is that the primary productivity of the oceans affects oxygen levels directly, as higher productivity leads to greater levels of oxygen consumption. Thus there is the reasonable expectation that seawater oxygenation will decline in the future, as the oceans warm and as rivers supply more nutrients. This expectation is backed up by the direct observation of substantially decreasing oxygen levels in many parts of the oceans over the last 50 or 60 years. Although a global phenomenon, oxygen levels are most sensitive in continental shelf waters. This is a concern, because most marine species live on the continental shelf, and they are highly susceptible to changes in seawater oxygenation. Humankind is acutely at risk from the consequences of shelf deoxygenation: more than one billion people depend on marine food as their primary protein source. However, it is notoriously difficult to predict accurately the speed, severity and trajectory of future deoxygenation. One very powerful way of improving the reliability of forecasts is to refine predictive models by 'tuning' them using observations of past seawater oxygenation. This project (RESPIRE) will define the oxygenation history of seawater covering a period of just over 30 million years, from around 56 million years ago to 25 million years ago. The Earth's surface environment cooled substantially during this period, both gradually and also in a few discrete jumps. Because there are no direct records of past seawater oxygenation, we will use geochemical proxies whose values reflect oxygenation levels. Although these geochemical measurements are very difficult and time consuming, we have many years' experience in their development and application and we have shown that the proxies can act as robust archives of past oxygenation for short time intervals. The challenge now is to generate longer-term records that will help us to better understand the controls on past - and future - seawater oxygenation. An additional and highly important aspect of low-oxygen marine environments is that they are a pre-requisite for the formation of hydrocarbon source rocks, which supply most of the world's current energy demand. Because RESPIRE will involve close co-operation between field geologists, geochemists, climate modellers and industry geologists, the project will provide a forum to better define the relationship between past seawater deoxygenation and the accumulation of organic matter from which hydrocarbons are derived. RESPIRE will be the first study to establish the longer-term oxygenation history of seawater by providing an integrated, interdisciplinary assessment of how seawater oxygenation is linked to global Earth System processes.
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