Elham Mahdipour

Research

I'm currently working on Notostraca, a group of tadpole shrimps and an ingroup of Branchiopoda. Tadpole shrimps are iconic components of the freshwater fauna, and their evolutionary origins date back to the Devonian period (about 365 million years ago). High-resolution imaging is being used for many fossil and extant tadpole shrimps and their closer fossil and extant relatives. Based on these data, the project will establish a morphometric framework for reconstructing the evolutionary history of the group Notostraca. These findings will provide deeper insights into the presumed long-term stability of the specific habitat of ephemeral ponds, which seems to have played an essential role for the last 365 million years.