Jennifer Austin, Master Student

 

Jennifer is a master student working on the systematics and evolution of the Indo-West Pacific cephalaspidean genus Phanerophthalmus (Project title: Patterns of speciation in the tropical Indo-West Pacific, with a systematic revision of the genus Phanerophthalmus (Cephalaspidea, Haminoeidae)).

The project aims to revise the systematics of these sea slugs, infer the phylogeny and biogeographic relationships of species, and to produce new insights into the processes driving biological diversification in the tropical Indo-West Pacific. The taxonomy of species will be revised through shell morphology, fine-scale anatomical dissections using light and scanning electron microscopy, and molecular phylogenetics.