Evolution and Paleontology Studies

This study analyzes species-area relationships (SARs) in tetrapods across the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction, showing changes in SAR slope and intercept that contradict expected patterns of homogenization and diversity loss.

The paper examines body size evolution in island mice by comparing developmental traits between Gough Island and mainland mice, identifying key periods of weight gain and metabolic shifts.

This paper uses computational modeling to show that sedimentary processes can influence microevolutionary trait evolution, producing patterns similar to punctuated equilibria observed in fossil records.

This study investigates how incorporating cryptic diversity into diversification dynamics analysis of crocodylians changes speciation rate estimates, finding increased rates toward the present compared to previous studies.

This study revises two osteoderms from the Cuvieri Cave, identifying them as the first evidence of a large Dasypodidae member in the region.

This paper introduces the Ecological Functional Networks Hypothesis to explain ecological persistence and evolution through functional networks of species, supported by fossil record evidence and proposed tests.

The paper examines how speciation completion rates affect macroevolutionary diversification by comparing standard birth-death models with a protracted birth-death model.

StratPal is an R package that allows combining stratigraphic, ecological, evolutionary, and taphonomic modules into modeling pipelines to analyze fossil data and account for stratigraphic biases.

This study evaluates the accuracy of phylogenetic reconstructions from continuous characters under parsimony and finds higher accuracy for Brownian-Motion simulated data.

This study shows that apparent negative scaling between diversification rates and time in fossils is caused by sampling bias, not real evolutionary trends.

The paper evaluates the reliability of phylogenetic inference using primate enamel proteins by simulating sequence fragmentation and comparing results to a reference species tree.

The paper analyzes the phylogenetic relationships of Episoriculus shrews using molecular and morphometric data, concluding six valid species and revising taxonomic classifications.

The paper introduces the R package tbea to improve Bayesian divergence time estimation by integrating biological, geological, and palaeontological data for better model specification and reproducibility.

The paper presents a birth-death model where speciation rates depend on evolutionary relatedness, showing how different scales of relatedness affect tree shape and diversification patterns.

This paper introduces a model to test relationships between multiple regional features and biogeographic processes, finding negative relationships between distance and dispersal, and area and extinction.

This paper argues that parsimonious microscopic models of speciation are needed to understand macroevolution, but too detailed models fail to make robust predictions.

This study examines how phylogenetic structure influences Canidae lineage distribution and trait variation globally, revealing distinct patterns and challenging traditional ecological rules.

This study uses phylogenetic and biogeographic methods to examine how the closure of the Isthmus of Panama influenced the evolutionary history of Snooks.

The paper proves that time-dependent fossilised birth-death models are identifiable, but shows that adding a removal after sampling parameter makes them unidentifiable.

This study identifies shrew-specific genomic variants linked to echolocation, metabolism, and body size plasticity through comparative genomics.

The paper assesses the adequacy of morphological models in phylogenetics using posterior predictive simulations and finds that current Mk model variations perform adequately but no single model is universally best.

This study examines the paleoecology of European rhinocerotids during the Oligocene-Miocene transition, revealing dietary, physiological, and habitat changes linked to climatic shifts.

This study analyzes gestation length variation across eutherian mammals and identifies adaptive shifts linked to life history traits and evolutionary transitions.

This study examines skull evolution in Malagasy carnivorans, finding high disparity but no rapid lineage diversification, challenging adaptive radiation hypotheses.

The paper shows that apparent increases in evolutionary rates over short time scales are statistical artifacts caused by time-independent errors in data.

This study examines how stratigraphic incompleteness affects the recovery of evolutionary modes from fossil time series, finding that prolonged gaps, not stratigraphic position, most strongly influence trait evolution.

This paper identifies fossil lizard taxa from Hall's Cave using an apomorphic framework and provides a guide for improving fossil lizard identification across North America.

This study investigates the tempo and mode of morphological evolution in skinks, finding that most traits evolve conservatively but rare bursts of rapid change produce novel morphologies.

This study examines the relationship between nutrient foramen size and aerobic capacity in xenarthran mammals, finding that giant extinct species had high metabolic rates comparable to placental mammals.

This paper introduces a non-linear phylogenetic regression method using regularized kernels, showing improved error reduction in both biological and simulated datasets.