The origin of vertebrates involved both the establishment of our evolutionary lineage and an important stage in genetic and developmental evolution. As a result, early vertebrates are the focus of many different disciplines, such as palaeonotology, comparative anatomy, embryology, developmental genetics or molecular phylogenetics.
As part of this, our group tries to understand how and when the vertebrate skeleton was developed, characterise the different mineralised tissues and the patterns of character evolution in order to establish the evolutionary relationships amongst the most important clades of jawless and jawed vertebrates. To do that, our group studies early vertebrates from systematic (disparity and diversity), histological and functional points of view.