Biodiversity Online Morning Seashells

 

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Morning's Seashells

Kurt Jackson (2021)

Mixed media on paper, 57cm x 61cm

 

Professor Thomas Richards: Research

Thomas Richards is a Royal Society University Research Fellow and a professor of Evolutionary Genomics at the Department of Zoology. His research focuses on understanding how eukaryotic cellular complexity – which encompasses plants, animals, fungi and a vast diversity of microbial forms called protists – arose and diversified.

Professor Thomas Richards: Response

"This artwork captures our attempt to comprehend the vast, deep dark oceans. We look on, largely from the side, wondering at the complexity. Our research has tried to understand the diversity of microbes that function in the oceans. Interweaved rings, found at the bottom of the picture, hint at the biological interactions so important for the ocean ecosystem. It is as if a fragment of these webs of interaction, and the cycles they drive, is sketched; the sketch then abandoned in the face of such complexity."

Specimens

Common Whelk (Buccinum undatum)

European flat oyster (Ostrea edulis)

Common cockle (Cerastoderma edule)

Saltwater clam (Chamelea gallina)

Sea snail (Lithoria)