Doctoral Training Partnerships: a range of postgraduate training is funded by the Research Councils. For information on current funding routes, see the common terminology at https://www.ukri.org/apply-for-funding/how-we-fund-studentships/. Training grants may be to one organisation or to a consortia of research organisations. This portal will show the lead organisation only.

Snakes are a large radiation (ca. 4,000 species) of reptiles that evolved from lizard ancestors. Although the early evolutionary history of snakes is hotly debated, the remarkable transition to an elongated, limbless body form is generally thought to have evolved as an adaptation to a fossorial (burrowing) lifestyle. Life in soil imposes several, severe functional constraints on morphology and this has led to the view that limbless, headfirst burrowers are less likely to undergo rapid or adaptive radiation. Surprisingly, very few studies have explored the ecomorphological diversification of any major extant burrowing snake lineage, despite implications for understanding evolution in soils (including the possible origin of snakes). SOILRAD will trace the diversification of lineages and the adaptive possibilities of ecomorphology in Uropeltoidea, a major lineage of soil-dwelling snakes with great diversity in body and hea shape. In SOILRAD, I will explore uropeltoid diversification through three Research Objectives: (1.) apply 3-dimensional geometric morphometrics to microCT data from the huge collection of museum specimens at NHM, to quantify and identify the main axes of variation in skeletal morphology (skull, mandible and 'neck' vertebrae); (2.) use ancient DNA and Next-Generation sequencing techniques to reconstruct a more-complete evolutionary tree of Uropeltoidea; and (3.) assess rates and modes of lineage and ecomorphological diversification, and test hypotheses of adaptive radiation. SOILRAD will produce the most comprehensive phylogenetic hypothesis and first extensive quantitative data on uropeltoid osteology, and first detailed assessment of diversification in any major lineage of burrowing snakes. Through SOILRAD, I will be trained in CT imaging, 3D morphometrics, ancient DNA methods, museum collection management, public engagement and other professional skills that will establish me as a potential research-group leader in evolutionary biology research.

We aim to understand how propagule banks contribute to demography and genetic diversity through a combined empirical and modelling approach. The genetic structure of sediment bound propagules and of populations from different years will be characterized in bryozoan and plant systems. Models will predict temporal changes in genotype frequencies and the proportions deriving from propagule banks. Stage structured model simulations will identify key parameters that influence demography. Our study would have broad implications regarding the ecological significance of temporal gene flow in taxa ranging from zooplankton and plants to microbes, and a mechanistic basis for characterizing demographic contributions from propagule banks.

Impact cratering is ubiquitous across the Solar System. Due to their abundance, impact craters are key to understanding the evolution of planetary surfaces. In this project we will exploit the vast secondary crater population to investigate a range of features and processes in the Solar System. This work will involve refining the method of primary and secondary impact crater identification in remote sensing data, before developing a modern workflow of their use as absolute stratigraphic markers. This novel approach will be applied to a range of key science questions on different planetary bodies, including Mercury, the Moon, Mars and Europa. The questions that we will address are: (1) What is the rate of ice flow on Mars? (2) What is the detailed stratigraphy of the lunar Mare? (3) Are there active surface processes on Mercury? (4) How fast is plate tectonics on Europa? The outcome of this project will be a new, widely applicable, and open method of deriving absolute ages across the Solar System.

The natural world is expected to undergo a significant change over the coming century, driven by climate change, habitat loss, human population increases and increased globalisation. Many animal-borne or zoonotic human diseases (e.g. Ebola, Plague, Anthrax) are caught from wild animal species and these host species will likely alter what they do and where they are found in response to global changes. The recent emergence of several zoonotic diseases has caused significant social and economic disruption (e.g. SARS-COV-2, Zika, Ebola). One such disease is Lassa Fever, which is found throughout West Africa and has yearly annual widespread outbreaks causing hundreds of deaths a year. It is caught from the widespread, agricultural pest species Mastomys natalensis, also called the Multimammate Rat. Recent evidence has pointed to an increase in cases and, therefore, it is vital we act now to better understand this disease. In this context, working closely with anthropologists, we will create a comprehensive model of the transmission of Lassa Fever virus between the animal hosts and human populations. Using a modelling approach that examines individual rodent and human behaviour, we will look to understand how the seasonal, geographical and sociocultural differences to the conditions that host species experience, alter their chances of transmitting their pathogens to humans. We will also include specific differences in the behaviours of groups of people, such as farm labourers and household workers. From these models, will make and test management recommendations that disrupt contact between people and the host species. We will then use other, simpler methods to summarise the outputs of these complex models. This will allow us to understand more about what we need to know about diseases, to model them across different spatial scales. For instance, to predict the number of cases within a village we would likely need to know lots of information about individual human and rodent behaviour, but to predict the same information at, for instance, a district level we might just need to know how often people and infected rodents meet each other. Uncovering the relationship between drivers of disease risk and spatial scale, would allow us to more easily make risk maps for policy makers that we know are accurate. Overall, using our different approaches we can help predict which areas of West Africa are at risk of Lassa Fever and many other poorly-known animal-borne diseases. By incorporating local-scale processes we can better create measures that prevent disease, while reducing negative impacts on the livelihoods of poor and vulnerable human communities. Furthermore, with large ongoing changes to demography and the environment expected in West Africa over the coming decades, it is important to predict how zoonotic diseases will likely respond to environmental change, to better understand where these diseases may spread in the future. Lastly, we will create two software tools. The first will bring together researchers from different subjects to work more effectively, by providing a bespoke, digital framework for use in participatory mapping. The second, will provide an online framework for untrained users to run our broad-scale disease risk models.