|
|
1) Survivorship through Mass Extinctions
Research on mass extinctions events typically has focused on determining the causes of the events. I think that it is equally important to determine who survives such events and why. I’m currently working on a project to determine if there are any common factors in terms of shape, evolutionary lineage, biogeography, or environmental preference among Paleozoic brachiopod lineages that survived mass extinctions.
2) Predation in the Mid-Paleozoic
Predation is a major influence on community composition and biodiversity in the Recent. Has that always been the case? How has predation influenced biodiversity through time?
We have a lot of evidence at global scales for (a) an increase in predation during the Devonian, and (b) an increase in potentially protective ornament among prey at the same time. However, we have not explicitly tested whether Devonian prey morphology is an evolutionary response to predation; such work must be done at very fine stratigraphic and geographic scales. A major focus of my research is to examine Devonian predation at these fine scales.
3) Latitudinal Diversity Gradient
The latitudinal diversity gradient, the decrease in the number of species away from the Tropics, is probably the most well-known pattern of biodiversity. Despite over a century of research, we still cannot explain the pattern; over a dozen hypotheses have been put forward. I believe that paleontology can provide a new perspective on this problem by examining how the gradient has changed through time.
