Promoter: Leonard Dewaele
​Supervisor: Anastasia Selini
​Subject: Taphonomic deformation is very common in the fossil record, resulting in biases in phylogenetic, morphological, and biomechanical studies. A variety of methodologies for retro-deformation exist in the literature, but few have been validated. Retro-deformation, while very valuable for the study of extinct organisms, does not necessarily produce an accurate reconstruction of the original shape. Oftentimes, researchers use extant taxa as references for estimating the original shape, but these methodologies are inherently biased. The effect of the produced error through these techniques on 3D geometric morphometric analyses and the effectiveness of sculpting-based retro-deformation techniques have yet to be tested. In this study, pinniped crania will be used to investigate what extent of deformation can still provide valuable data for 3D geometric morphometrics and whether sculpting-based retro-deformation techniques can improve those results.
In this project, the student will: (1) become familiar with the cranial anatomy of pinnipeds; (2) identify types of deformation present in the fossil record of pinnipeds; (3) deform crania of extant species of pinnipeds based on the most common types of deformation; (4) conduct quantitative analyses of morphology using 3D geometric morphometrics for the original and deformed crania; (5) retro-deform extant pinniped crania using Blender following a literature based technique; (6) assess the effect in morphology between different types of deformation and the success of the retro-deformation techniques.
​