Graham Edward Budd is a British

palaeontologist Paleontology, also spelled as palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of the life of the past, mainly but not exclusively through the study of fossils. Paleontologists use fossils as a means to classify organisms, measure geolo ...

. He is

Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

and head of palaeobiology at

Uppsala University Uppsala University (UU) () is a public university, public research university in Uppsala, Sweden. Founded in 1477, it is the List of universities in Sweden, oldest university in Sweden and the Nordic countries still in operation. Initially fou ...

. Budd's research focuses on the Cambrian explosion and on the evolution and development,

anatomy Anatomy () is the branch of morphology concerned with the study of the internal structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old scien ...

, and patterns of diversification of the

Ecdysozoa Ecdysozoa () is a group of protostome animals, including Arthropoda (insects, chelicerates (including arachnids), crustaceans, and myriapods), Nematoda, and several smaller phylum (biology), phyla. The grouping of these animal phyla into a single ...

, a group of animals that include

arthropod Arthropods ( ) are invertebrates in the phylum Arthropoda. They possess an arthropod exoskeleton, exoskeleton with a cuticle made of chitin, often Mineralization (biology), mineralised with calcium carbonate, a body with differentiated (Metam ...

Life and work

Budd was born on 7 September 1968 in

Colchester Colchester ( ) is a city in northeastern Essex, England. It is the second-largest settlement in the county, with a population of 130,245 at the 2021 United Kingdom census, 2021 Census. The demonym is ''Colcestrian''. Colchester occupies the ...

(

Essex Essex ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England, and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Kent across the Thames Estuary to the ...

). He obtained his undergraduate degree at the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

and remained there, in the Department of Earth Sciences, to continue his studies at a doctoral level by investigating the

Sirius Passet Sirius Passet is a Cambrian Lagerstätte in Peary Land, Greenland. The Sirius Passet Lagerstätte was named after the Slædepatruljen Sirius, Sirius sledge patrol that operates in North Greenland. It comprises six places in Nansen Land, on the eas ...

fossil

lagerstätte A Fossil-Lagerstätte (, from ''Lager'' 'storage, lair' '' Stätte'' 'place'; plural ''Lagerstätten'') is a sedimentary deposit that preserves an exceptionally high amount of palaeontological information. ''Konzentrat-Lagerstätten'' preserv ...

from the

Cambrian The Cambrian ( ) is the first geological period of the Paleozoic Era, and the Phanerozoic Eon. The Cambrian lasted 51.95 million years from the end of the preceding Ediacaran period 538.8 Ma (million years ago) to the beginning of the Ordov ...

of North Greenland. He finished his doctorate in 1994, with one of the findings being a new species of

lobopodia Lobopodians are members of the informal group Lobopodia (), or the formally erected phylum Lobopoda Cavalier-Smith (1998). They are panarthropods with stubby legs called lobopods, a term which may also be used as a common name of this group as ...

n, ''

Kerygmachela ''Kerygmachela kierkegaardi'' is a Kerygmachelidae, kerygmachelid Lobopodia#Gilled lobopodians, gilled lobopodian from the Cambrian Stage 3 aged Sirius Passet Lagerstätte in northern Greenland. Its anatomy strongly suggests that it, along with i ...

''. Budd then moved to Sweden as a postdoc along with his PhD supervisor John Peel. Together with Sören Jensen he reintroduced the concepts of stem and

crown group In phylogenetics, the crown group or crown assemblage is a collection of species composed of the living representatives of the collection, the most recent common ancestor of the collection, and all descendants of the most recent common ancestor ...

s to

phylogenetics In biology, phylogenetics () is the study of the evolutionary history of life using observable characteristics of organisms (or genes), which is known as phylogenetic inference. It infers the relationship among organisms based on empirical dat ...

and is a major critic of

molecular clock The molecular clock is a figurative term for a technique that uses the mutation rate of biomolecules to deduce the time in prehistory when two or more life forms diverged. The biomolecular data used for such calculations are usually nucleot ...

s current usage in determining the origin of animal and plant groups. He has edited Acta Zoologica together with Lennart Olsson; he has also edited the Geological Magazine.

Accolades

* Hodson Fund of the Palaeontological Association in 2002. * President's Medal of the Palaeontological Association in 2015. * Nathorst Prize of the Geologiska Foreningen in 2021.Graham Budd tilldelas Geologiska Föreningens Nathorstpris
2021-11-08

Selected publications

* G. E. Budd. 2002. A palaeontological solution to the arthropod head problem. ''Nature'' 417: 271-275. * G. E. Budd. 2006. On the origin and evolution of major morphological characters. ''Biological Reviews'' 81: 609-628. * G. E. Budd. 2017. The origin of the animals and a ‘Savannah’ hypothesis for early bilaterian evolution. ''Biological Reviews'' 92(1), 446-473

References

External links

Graham Budd's web page at Uppsala University
{{DEFAULTSORT:Budd, Graham 1968 births British palaeontologists English palaeontologists Swedish paleontologists Swedish scientists Living people Paleobiologists Alumni of Downing College, Cambridge Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge

Life and work

Accolades

Selected publications

See also

References

External links