Drs. Heather M. Wilson, Jerome C. Regier and Jeffrey W. Schultz of the University of Maryland have been awarded a grant to study the evolution of millipedes (Class Diplopoda). The millipedes are one of the most diverse groups of animals, with more than 8,000 species. They are important components of terrestrial ecosystems and appear to have been so for over 400 million years. Nonetheless, the role of millipedes in the life history of our planet is not well understood. The project detailed here will resolve the evolutionary relationships (phylogeny) of the millipede orders through extensive original analyses of muscular anatomy, fossil morphology and DNA sequences. This project has four main objectives: (1) to survey the skeletal muscles; (2) to examine the skeletal anatomy of fossilized species; (3) to comparatively sequence the DNA coding for three nuclear protein-encoding genes (elongation factor-1a, RNA polymerase II and elongation factor-2); (4) to use these data, separately and in combination, to infer the phylogeny (family tree) of millipedes and their relatives. This work is unusually interdisciplinary in that it represents a collaboration of specialists in paleontology, comparative anatomy and molecular genetics. This integrative approach to millipede phylogeny promises substantial insights into the evolutionary biology of a large, important group of organisms and will produce and permit the integration and analysis of data of three very different types to address a single question.
