Promoter: Yuri Simone
​Co-promoters: Sam Van Wassenbergh, David Labonte (Imperial College London)
Subject: Animal locomotor performance is strongly influenced by body size, but relationships between size and performance are not always straightforward. While biomechanical principles provide clear predictions for some traits, maximum running speed typically shows a non-linear relationship with body size, with the fastest terrestrial animals tending to be of intermediate size. These patterns may reflect differences in the physiological and biomechanical constraints acting on small and large animals. Running speed is also ecologically important, influencing predator avoidance, prey capture, dispersal and competition.
Scorpions offer an interesting but understudied system for investigating these relationships. This project will establish a comparative dataset of maximum running speed across diverse scorpion species by recording locomotion using high-speed video in a standardized experimental setup. The resulting measurements will be combined with morphological and phylogenetic data to investigate how body size, morphology and evolutionary history shape locomotor performance. The student will gain experience in experimental biomechanics, video analysis using MATLAB or Python, and phylogenetic comparative methods.
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