Origin of metazoans: 🔚 Event concluded
All living animals, the metazoans, are derived from a single ancestral multicellular assemblage that formed in the earth’s oceans hundreds of millions of years ago. The origin and the early evolution of this unique metazoan ancestor remain among the most fascinating questions in biology.
With a real sense of excitement, tangible hypotheses are now emerging concerning these pivotal events. This is due to recent progress in a number of quite distinct fields of research, resulting from the application of new technologies and approaches as outlined below. This highly interdisciplinary emerging international community has started to integrate insights from different domains and to build a new framework for understanding the origin of metazoans.
Topic covered by the conference will include:
• Lessons from the fossil record. Presenting recent advances and discoveries in early animals fossils and how these inform our views on animal origins.
• Animal evolutionary relationships and molecular evolution. Information from molecular phylogeny and evolution will be presented in the context of animal origins.
• Evolution of genome regulation and the origin of animals. Advances in our understanding of how animal gene regulation and cellular specialization emerged.
• Evolutionary cell biology and experimental multicellularity. Insights from the emerging fields of comparative cell biology and experimental evolution to understand how the first animals could have evolved from a cellular perspective (constrains, cellular processes, etc.).
• Lessons from non-metazoan relatives. How the comparative study of close unicellular relatives of animals (choanoflagellates, filastereans and ichthyosporeans) is illuminating animal origins.
• Lessons from other multicellularities. Examples of alternative routes to the acquisition of multicellularity achieved in fungi, amoebozoans and diverse algal lineages.
• Lessons from non-bilaterians. Insights from early-branching model metazoan organisms covering all four non-bilaterian groups: ctenophores, sponges, placozoans and cnidarians.
Chairperson
Arnau Sebe-Pedros
Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) Systems Biology Program, Dr. Aiguader 88, 08003 Barcelona, Espagne
Phone : +34626940216
E-mail : arnau.sebe@crg.eu
Vice-chairperson
Lucas Leclère
CNRS - Sorbonne Université UMR7232 - BIOM, 1 avenue Pierre Fabre, 66650 Banyuls-sur-Mer, France
Phone : +33430192438
E-mail : lucas.leclere@obs-banyuls.fr
(provisional titles)
Session 1 - Lessons from the fossil record
Jakob Vinther (Bristol University)
A palaeontological solution to the controversial debate on ctenophore and placozoan origins
Andrew H Knoll (Harvard University)
The Earth system context of early metazoan evolution
Session 2 - Animal evolutionary relationships and molecular evolution
Darrin Schultz (University of Vienna)
Ancient genomes through a modern lens
Eric Bapteste (Sorbonne University)
Origin of metazoans - principles of investigation from a phylosystemic and gene co-expression network perspective
Purificacion Lopez-Garcia (Université Paris-Saclay)
Origin and early evolution of eukaryotes
Session 3 - Evolution of genome regulation and the origin of animals
Alex de Mendoza (Queen Mary University of London)
The evolutionary foundations of animal cell reprogramming
James Gahan (Galway University)
Chromatin and gene regulation in the closest relatives of animals, the choanoflagellates
Arnau Sebe-Pedros (Centre for Genomic Regulation)
Early metazoan cell type diversity, from gene expression to regulatory programs
Session 4 - Lessons from non-metazoan relatives
Thibaut Brunet (Institut Pasteur)
The origin of animal cell architecture: insights from choanoflagellates
Nicole King (Berkeley University)
In the field with choanoflagellates
Session 5 - Evolutionary cell biology and experimental multicellularity
Omaya Dudin (University of Geneva)
Multicellular Developmental Diversity at the Root of Animals
Will Ratcliff (Georgia Institute of Technology)
Exploring multicellularity via experimental evolution
Lillian Fritz-Laylin (University of Massachusetts)
The evolution and functional specification of cytoskeletal networks
Session 6 - Lessons from other multicellularities
Susana Coelho (Max Planck Institute for Biology Tubingen)
Brown algal insights into the molecular bases of multicellular development
Session 7 - Lessons from non-bilaterians
Pawel Burkhardt (Sars Institute)
Tracking the deep evolutionary origins of nervous systems
William Browne (University of Miami)
Immune cell behaviors and gene expression in the ctenophore Mnemiopsis
Alexander Ereskovsky (Institute Méditerranéen de Biodiversité et d’Ecologie)
What sponges tell us about the early evolution of morphogenesis in Metazoa
André le Bivic (Institut de Biologie du Développement de Marseille)
The evolution of epithelial cell-cell junctions from sponges to mammalian cells
Chiara Sinigaglia (Observatoire océanologique de Banyuls-sur-Mer)
Shared principles of patterning and morphogenesis from a regenerating jellyfish
Evelyn Houliston (Institut de la mer de Villefranche)
What can the planula larva of the hydrozoan Clytia tell us about early animal evolution?
Leslie Babonis (Cornell University)
Drivers of cell type diversification
Lucas Leclère (Observatoire océanologique de Banyuls-sur-Mer)
Tracing the origins of myofibrils in animals, insights from cnidarians
Notification of acceptance or rejection for the submitted paper will be intimated within 15 working days of abstract submission deadline. If your abstract is accepted, you will receive a confirmation e-mail with instructions for joining the meeting.
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