Metazoan Phylogeny and Evolution

A major goal of the Giribet Lab is to elucidate the relationships among the higher metazoan lineages (phyla, classes, etc.). We are currently generating and analyzing large phylogenomic data sets to resolve the Animal Tree of Life.

Past funding: 

 Completed theses:

  •  Christopher Laumer, 2014: Isolated branches in the phylogeny of Platyhelminthes

Highlighted publications: 

  • Dunn, C. W., Hejnol, A., Matus, D. Q., Pang, K., Browne, W. E., Smith, S. A., Seaver, E. C., Rouse, G. W., Obst, M., Edgecombe, G. D., Sørensen, M. V., Haddock, S. H. D., Schmidt-Rhaesa, A., Okusu, A., Kristensen, R. M., Wheeler, W. C., Martindale, M. Q., Giribet, G. 2008. Broad phylogenomic sampling improves resolution of the animal tree of life. Nature 452, 745-749.
  • Hejnol, A., Obst, M., Stamatakis, A., M., O., Rouse, G. W., Edgecombe, G. D., Martinez, P., Baguñà, J., Bailly, X., Jondelius, U., Wiens, M., Müller, W. E. G., Seaver, E., Wheeler, W. C., Martindale, M. Q., Giribet, G., Dunn, C. W. 2009. Assessing the root of bilaterian animals with scalable phylogenomic methods. P. Roy. Soc. B Biol. Sci. 276, 4261-4270.
  • Dunn, C. W., Giribet, G., Edgecombe, G. D., Hejnol, A. 2014. Animal phylogeny and its evolutionary implications. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics 45, 371-395.
  • Giribet, G. 2015. Morphology should not be forgotten in the era of genomics—a phylogenetic perspective. Zool. Anz. 256, 96-103.
  • Giribet, G. 2015. New Animal Phylogeny: Future challenges for animal phylogeny in the age of phylogenomics. Org. Divers. Evol.
  • Laumer, C. E., Bekkouche, N., Kerbl, A., Goetz, F., Neves, R. C., Sørensen, M. V., Kristensen, R. M., Hejnol, A., Dunn, C. W., Giribet, G., Worsaae, K. 2015. Spiralian phylogeny informs the evolution of microscopic lineages. Curr. Biol. 25, 2000-2006.