Barralab has hosted 18 PhD students, and dozens of Masters and Undergraduate project students since it began in 1999. Past students have gone on to work in academic research, industry R&D, publishing, data analytics, technical services, teaching and to start a family or their own businesses. Many students have worked collaboratively and on interdisciplinary projects with partner organisations such as the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, CABI, the Natural History Museum and other universities.
Some examples of past PhD, Masters and Undergraduate projects are listed below. Please contact us to discuss ideas for projects, we are happy to design projects to blend your interests with the group's expertise.
Lily Peck ‘Predicting evolutionary dynamics of crop pathogen communities’. NERC CASE project with Dr Matthew Ryan at CABI. 2018-
Bruce Murphy ‘Phylogenomics and evolution of pitcher plants (Nepenthes) and biogeographical patterns in SE Asia’ NERC DTP, with James Rosindell, Imperial College, and Martin Cheek & Felix Forest, RBG Kew. 2016-
Rowan Schley ’Neotropical plant Evolution: Adding Pieces to the Jigsaw’. NERC DTP, with Bente Klitgaard & Felix Forest, RBG Kew. 2015-2018
Sina Omosowon ‘Phylogenetics of guinea yams and their wild relatives’. PRESSID, with Paul Wilkin, Felix Forest, RBG Kew. 2015-2018.
Richard Sheppard ‘The evolution of horizontal gene transfer in microbial communities’. BBSRC DTP, with Vincent Jansen (Royal Holloway UL) 2015-.
Chris Culbert ‘The evolutionary dynamics of microbial communities’ BBSRC. 2012-2016.
Laura Johnson ‘In vitro and in silico models of gut bacterial diversity and impacts on human health’ NC3R with Gary Frost (Imperial, Medicine), Glenn Gibson (Univ Reading, Food Biosciences). 2012-2017.
Cuong Tang ‘The Consequences of Life without Sex An Examination into Taxonomy and Evolution of the Anciently Asexual Bdelloid Rotifers’. NERC, with Diego Fontaneto, 2010-2014.
Isobel Eyres ‘The adaptive consequences of horizontal gene transfer in bdelloid rotifers’. NERC 2010 – 2013.
Diane Lawrence ‘The evolutionary responses of complex ecosystems’. BBSRC Grantham studentship 2009 – 2013.
Martine Claremont 'Diversification on tropical seashores’. Deputy Rector's award & Natural History Museum studentship, with Suzanne Williams, David Reid (Natural History Museum, London) 2007- 2011.
Yael Kisel ‘Spatial scale of speciation in orchids’. Deputy Rector’s award & NSF-funded, with Mark Chase (Kew) 2006-2010
Jan Schnitzler 'Insect and plant coevolution in the Cape' EU Marie Curie EST network, with Vincent Savolainent (Kew). 2006-2010.
Tomochika Fujisawa 'Speciation in diving beetles'. Japanese funded studentship, with Alfried Vogler (Natural History Museum London). 2005-2012.
Richard Waterman ‘Coevolution of Cape plants & mycorrhiza’ NERC with Vincent Savolainen, Martin Bidartondo (Kew), 2005-2008.
Joseph Butlin 'Evolutionary ecology of genome diversity in saprotrophic fungi’ NERC 2003-2006
Jonathan Davies 'Environmental energy and diversity in flowering plants'. NERC, with Vincent Savolainen, Mark Chase (Kew) 2000-2003
Gail Reeves 'Radiation and macroevolutionary ecology of Protea'. NERC, with Mark Chase (Kew) 1997-2000.
Larry Bliss 'Forecasting Evolution in Experimental, Natural, and Artificial systems' 2021
Xiuhan Zhang 'Impacts of Climate Change on Distribution, Severity, and Growth of Coffee Wilt Disease Fungus' 2020
Wenhua Zhou 'Evolutionary analysis of a large whole-genome dataset of Aspergillus fumigatus' 2020
Meng Lu 'Impact of Gene Flow on Ecological Differentiation of Bacteria' 2019
Emily Noone 'Systematics and Evolution of Loss in the Deep-Sea Gastropod Family Solariellidae' 2019 (with Suzanne Williams, NHM)
Thomas McNally 'Microbial diversity enables populations of stress-tolerant bdelloid rotifers to subsist on inorganic ions' 2019 (with Chris Wilson)
Harrison Ostridge 'Using Population Genomics to Investigate Recombination and Speciation in Bdelloid Rotifers' 2019
Ayush Pathak 'Experimental evolution with Alexander Fleming's Penicillium fungus' 2019
Joshua Reynolds 'Comparative genomics of bdelloid rotifers: Desiccation and immunity in an ancient asexual' 2019
Jiqiu Wu 'CRISPRs and dynamics of gut microbiomes' 2019
Ewan Flintham 'The role of genetic architecture in trait divergence under varying selection regimes ' 2018
Fernando Pedraza Perez 'Assessing the stability of in silico gut bacteria communities' 2018
Marcus Rhodes 'Habitat preferences of the silver- studded blue butterfly (Plebejus argus) on a heathland reserve in Surrey, UK' 2018
Sophie Gresham 'Investigating the Role of Homologous Recombination in Bacterial Speciation; Combining Reproductive Isolation and Ecotype Models of Speciation' 2017
Leanne Massie 'A Mechanistic Model of Bacterial Evolutionary Responses to Antibiotics in Communities of Varying Size' 2016
Michael Schmutzer 'Modelling the evolution of gene-specific ecological divergence in bacteria' 2016
Vivak Soni 'delimiting species from bacterial genome data based on patterns of divergent selection' 2016
Rhiannon Dowling 'Horizontal transfer in bdelloid rotifers' 2019
Boris Mang 'Using Comparative Genomics to Understand Genome Evolution in the Plant Pathogen Clade Fusarium' 2019
Giulia Costa Domingo 'The relationship between dispersal potential and genetic clustering from DNA barcoding data' 2019
Angela Cai 'When is it beneficial for species to share genes?' 2018
Joel Elkin 'Positive and negative ecological interactions between microscopic asexual animals and bacteria' (supervised by Chris Wilson) 2018
Alice Beddis 'A meta-analysis of the effect of bacterial spatial configuration on plasmid transfer' 2017
Claire Dunican 'Shared host plant species determines the number of horizontal gene transfer events between Bradyrhizobium and Mesorhizobium strains ' 2017
Sophie Gresham 'Dating the origin of asexuality and rates of horizontal transfer in bdelloid rotifers' 2016
Natasha Saw 'Testing the evolutionary nature of bacterial species' 2016
Eleanor Webber 'What conditions favour increased speciation rates?' 2016
Pathak, A., Nowell, R.W., Wilson, C.G., Ryan, M.J., Barraclough, T.G. Comparative genomics of Alexander Fleming’s celebrated fungus Penicillium rubens (IMI 15378) reveals sequence divergence of penicillin synthesis genes. Sci. Reports. 10: 15705
Sheppard, R.J., Beddis, A., and Barraclough, T.G. 2020. The role of hosts, plasmids and environment in determining plasmid transfer rates: a meta-analysis. Plasmid. 108: 1024893
Schmutzer, M., Barraclough, T.G. 2019. The role of recombination, local versus global gene pools, and flexible genomes in the ecological speciation of bacteria. Ecology and Evolution. 9: 4544-4556
Nowell, R.W., Almeida, P., Wilson, C.G., Smith, T.P., Fontaneto, D., Crisp, A., Micklem, G., Tunnaclife, A., Boschetti, C., Barraclough, T.G. 2018. Comparative genomics of bdelloid rotifers: Insights from desiccating and nondesiccating species. PLoS Biology 16: e2004830
Humphreys, A.M., Rydin, C., Jønsson, K.A., Alsop, D., Callender‐Crowe, L.M., Barraclough, T.G. 2016. Detecting evolutionarily significant units above the species level using the generalised mixed Yule coalescent method. Methods in Ecology and Evolution. 11: 1366-1375
Jordan, S.M., Barraclough, T.G., Rosindell, J. 2016. Quantifying the effects of the break up of Pangaea on global terrestrial diversification with neutral theory. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B. 371: 20150221
Johnson L.P., Walton G.E., Psichas A., Frost G.S., Gibson G.R., Barraclough T.G. 2015. Prebiotics modulate the effects of antibiotics on gut microbial diversity and functioning in vitro. Nutrients. 7:4480-4497.
Eyres, I., Boschetti, C., Crisp, A., Smith, T.P., Fontaneto, D., Tunnacliffe, A. and Barraclough. T.G. 2015. Horizontal gene transfer in bdelloid rotifers is ancient, ongoing and more frequent in species from desiccating habitats. BMC Biology. 13:90 DOI 10.1186/s12915-015-0202-9
Frost G.S., Walton G.E., Swann J.R., Psichas A., Costabile A., Johnson L.P., Sponheimer M., Gibson G.R., Barraclough T.G. 2014. Impacts of plant-based foods in ancestral hominin diets on the metabolism and function of gut microbiota in vitro. mBio. 5: e00853-14.
Eyres, I., Frangedakis, E., Fontaneto, D., Herniou, E.A., Boschetti, C., Carr, A., Micklem, G., Tunnacliffe, A., Barraclough, T.G. 2012. Multiple functionally divergent and conserved copies of alpha tubulin in bdelloid rotifers. BMC Evol Biol 12:148
Lawrence, D., Fiegna F., Behrends, V., Bundy, J.G., Phillimore, A.B., Bell, T. and Barraclough T.G. 2012. Species interactions alter evolutionary responses to a novel environment. PLoS Biology 10: e1001330. (Rated 4* by Faculty 1000).
Perron, G.G., Lee, A.E.G., Wang, Y., Huang, W.E., Barraclough T.G. 2012. Bacterial recombination promotes the evolution of multidrug-resistance in functionally diverse populations. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B.279:1477-1484.
Swanstrom, J., Chen, K., Castillo, K., Barraclough, T.G., and Fontaneto D. 2011. Testing for evidence of inefficient selection in bdelloid rotifers: do sample size and habitat differences matter? Hydrobiologia. 662:19-25.
Fontaneto, D., Iakovenko, N., Eyres, I., Kaya, M., Wyman, M. and Barraclough, T.G. 2011. Cryptic diversity in the genus Adineta Hudson & Gosse, 1886 (Rotifera: Bdelloidea: Adinetidae): a DNA taxonomy approach. Hydrobiologia. 662:27-33
Valente, L.M., Reeves, G., Schnitzler, J., Pizer Mason, I., Fay, M.F., Rebelo, T.G., Chase, M.W. and Barraclough T.G. 2010. Diversification of the African genus Protea in the Cape biodiversity hotspot and beyond: equal rates but different spatial scales. Evolution. 64:745-760.
Barraclough, T.G., Hughes, M., Ashford-Hodges, N., and Fujisawa, T. 2009. Inferring evolutionarily significant units of bacterial diversity from broad environmental surveys of single-locus data. Biology Letters 5: 425-428.
Fontaneto, D, Barraclough, T.G., Chen, K., Ricci, C., Herniou, E.A. 2008. Molecular evidence for broad-scale distributions in bdelloid rotifers: everything is not everywhere but most things are very widespread. Mol Ecol, 17: 3136 – 3146.
de Mazancourt, C., Johnson E., and Barraclough, T.G. 2008. Biodiversity inhibits species’ evolutionary responses to changing environments. Ecology Letters. 11: 380-388