We’re very pleased to announce that two of our group leaders, Dr Emília Santos and Dr Emily Mitchell have been awarded European Research Council Consolidator Grants (part of the EU’s Horizon Europe programme). 

These grants are awarded to outstanding scientists who are establishing independent research teams to work on cutting-edge projects. The selection process is extremely competitive.

Dr Mitchell's Deep-time Ecology Group's REVEAL project will focus on the organisms that emerged during the Ediacaran period, 600 million years ago. While we know the Ediacaran organisms were animals, their unique anatomies have hampered our understanding of what shaped their evolution. Capitalising on the in-situ, census preservation of Ediacaran animals, this project will bring together geochemistry, palaeontology and evolutionary biology, to for the first time, quantify fitness and phenotypic evolution in early animals to determine the relative importance of biotic and abiotic factors to selection and so determine how and why the adaptive landscape changed for early animals. 

Dr Santos' Cichlid Eco-evo-devo Group’s PredictingSPOTS project will study striking colour patterns in East African cichlid fishes to understand how novel morphological traits originate and evolve. By combining population genomics, developmental biology and mathematical modelling, they will reveal how different biological layers interact to produce morphological diversity and why certain traits evolve repeatedly. This work will help them understand – and ultimately predict – how organismal diversity arises in nature.

Our Head of Department, Professor Rebecca Kilner said, 'I’m delighted for Emília and Emily. They both richly deserve this recognition for their innovative research programmes, which will drive a step-change in our understanding of evolution and the origins of biodiversity.'

Read more: Eight Cambridge researchers awarded €17 million in ERC Consolidator Grants

Image: left: Dr Emily Mitchell studying fossilised remains of Ediacaran animals (photo courtesy Dr Emily Mitchell). Right: Dr Emília Santos pictured next to a tank containing Cichlid fish (photo courtesy Dr Emília Santos)