The rise of life on land: new insights from exceptionally preserved fossils

Add to your list(s) Download to your calendar using vCal

• Dr Sandy Hetherington
• Tuesday 05 November 2024, 18:00-19:30
• Pfizer Lecture Theatre, Department of Chemistry, Lensfield Road.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Zhang Xianghao Jeffrey.

The rise of complex eukaryotic life on land represents one of the great transitions in Earth history. This major transition occurred during the Phanerozoic eon that started roughly 540 million years ago (Ma) and takes us through to the present day. At the beginning of the Phanerozoic, life on land was microbial and likely marginal but this was all about to change. Plants, animals and fungi diversified in unison and by the Devonian period roughly 380 Ma the terrestrial surface was covered in forests, harbouring complex fungal symbionts and a large diversity of animals including insects and tetrapods. Establishing what underpinned this radiation of life on land represents a key goal in evolutionary biology. However, it is also challenging as it requires piecing together data taken from a fragmentary and biased fossil record. In the talk I will describe how exceptionally preserve fossils from the United Kingdom provide unique insights onto the diversification of life on land including the evolution of plant leaves and the complex interactions between plants, animals and fungi.

Talks are priced at £4 for non-Scientific Society members. Scientific Society members will have free access to all our talks. Lifetime membership costs £15 and gives free access to all talks, members-only events and priority access to oversubscribed SciSoc events.

This talk is part of the SciSoc – Cambridge University Scientific Society series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• All Talks (aka the CURE list)
• Biology
• Chris Davis' list
• DevBio
• Featured lists
• Featured talks
• Graduate-Seminars
• Guy Emerson's list
• Humanitas and General Science
• Life Sciences
• Life Sciences
• ME Seminar
• Pfizer Lecture Theatre, Department of Chemistry, Lensfield Road
• SciSoc – Cambridge University Scientific Society
• custom
• my_list
• ndk22's list
• other talks
• se393's list

Note that ex-directory lists are not shown.