A rapid climate collapse during the Late Ordovician Mass Extinction devastated ocean life and reshuffled Earth’s ecosystems. In the aftermath, jawed vertebrates gained an unexpected edge by surviving ...

Some 445 million years ago, life on Earth was forever changed. During the geological blink of an eye, glaciers formed over the supercontinent Gondwana, drying out many of the vast, shallow seas like a ...

Image of a Melanocetus johnsonii anglerfish, also known as the black sea devil. Credit: Kory Evans/Rice University A new study on anglerfish evolution reveals how these deep-sea creatures adapted to ...

A new study reveals the remarkable evolutionary history of anglerfish, deep-sea creatures whose unusual adaptations have long fascinated both scientists and the public. Published in the journal Nature ...

“We cannot identify the true history of lineage diversification but perhaps we can identify all of the histories that are consistent with our data.” In my view, there are two major and important ...

Vertebrate limb morphology often reflects the environment due to variation in locomotor requirements. However, proximal and distal limb segments may evolve differently from one another, reflecting an ...

My research focuses on the function of living and extinct animals. In my lab we use biomechanical analysis, including the engineering technique finite element analysis (FEA), to deduce how skeletons ...

Flower colour is mainly due to the presence and type of pigments. Pollinator preferences impose selection on flower colour that ultimately acts on flower pigments. Knowing how pollinators perceive ...

In traditional population models of microbial ecology, there are two central players: producers and consumers (including decomposers that depend on organic carbon). Producers support surface ...