Palaeobiology and community analysis of the Burgess Shale biota.

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The earliest animals appeared and evolved rapidly during the so-called Cambrian Explosion, starting about 542 million years ago. One of the best places in the world for the study of this important event is the Burgess Shale in Yoho National Park, British Columbia. Here, the exceptionally-preserved fossil biota, composed mostly of soft-bodied animals, offers a rare glimpse into marine life during that critical time period. My research program will examine large-scale ecological and evolutionary aspects of the Cambrian Explosion using the Burgess Shale as my primary source of information. I will study the evolutionary relationships among different body plans based on fossils of new or poorly known Burgess Shale animals, with an aim to fix the timing of the origin of key characters and ecological innovations. A further goal is to study how the Burgess Shale biota changed through space and time in response to ecological, evolutionary and environmental factors. This research will involve interdisciplinary field-based investigations to better constrain the stratigraphic position of various Burgess Shale-type deposits in the Canadian Rockies, and to evaluate differences in their paleoenvironmental settings. Results of my research will be of significance not only to paleontologists but to a broad range of earth and life scientists, and in particular to evolutionary biologists interested in reconstructing the ancient origins of animals. This program will maintain Canada's position as a leader in the study of early animal evolution and paleontology in general.