The Cnidarian Tree of Life Project

Assistant Professor, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Kansas

Hydrozoan Phylogeny

Hydrozoans are the most diverse class of cnidarians in terms of life cycle evolution and colonial complexity. My role in CnidToL is to intensively sample members of the hydrozoan class Hydroidolina for DNA sequencing and molecular phylogenetic analysis, in order to reconstruct the life history patterns and evolution of complex colonies. In addition, I intend to investigate the mechanisms underlying these patterns of evolution by performing comparative gene expression studies.