How can we explain the morphological and ecological diversity observed in living amniotes using the fossil record? Can this inform our understanding of macroevolutionary patterns in deep time? In an effort to do so, my research integrates different data types, such as fossil information, phylogenetic comparative methods, µCT data, and isotope geochemistry.
Recent Interests
Explanations of macroevolutionary patterns
Quantifying and explaining macroevolutionary patterns, such as the evolution of body size and life history traits, is critical to our understanding of the origins of living amniote diversity. I am particularly interested in exploring such hypotheses utilizing robust datasets and comparisons with extant taxa.
Previous and ongoing work include exploring the drivers of reproductive scaling variation across amniotes, the degree to which energetic definitions of fitness govern body size distributions, correlates of body size evolution in geckos, and extinction and origination selectivity in Permo-Triassic synapsids.
Ecological diversity through time
To place these macroevolutionary patterns in an ecological context, I am interested in reconstructing the ecologies of extinct animals. To do so, we can look to correlates and drivers of ecological diversity in extant amniotes. The synthesis of different data types, such as morphology, phylogenetics, and isotope geochemistry, can greatly help inform deep-time ecological inferences.
Ongoing research includes investigating the trophic structure of Triassic and extant ecosystems, and morphological correlates of fossoriality in extinct and extant vertebrates.
Non-avian dinosaur evolution and ecology
Non-avian dinosaurs are a particularly exciting case study to investigate and explore drivers of macroevolutionary patterns and ecological variation. They originate in the wake of the most severe mass extinction event, encompass a wide range of body sizes and hypothesized ecologies, and include a major ecological and morphological transition in the evolution of birds.
Previous and ongoing work includes investigating the origins of bird reproduction, the absence of small-bodied non-avian dinosaurs, and niche partitioning in hadrosaurs.
