Latest News
02/2024: Response paper on irregular echinoid interrelationships
The phylogeny and classification of sand dollars, sea biscuits, and close relatives has been in a state of flux in recent years. Lee et al. recently published yet another phylogenetic alternative, deviating even further from traditional morphological classifications. I reassessed their data and found no support for this proposal. Advancing the fields of systematics, taxonomy, and macroevolution require that we embrace the stability offered by genome-scale approaches.
02/2024: chronospace R package and preprint are out!
Divergence time estimation is a tricky thing. We have developed tools to help quantify and visualize the sensitivity of the process to methodological decisions, providing novel approaches of exploring uncertainty. The methods are still in the trial period, so we would love to hear from you if you have any feedback. Check the manuscript; download the package.
02/2024: Invited seminar at Cal Poly Humboldt
Few things go as well together as phylogenies, redwoods, and meeting great colleagues
11/2023: A wonderful scientific milestone — my 30th manuscript has been published
Tip dating under the fossilized birth-death prior provides a coherent way of simultaneously inferring topology and divergence times. On the other hand, it can also result in incorrect temporal inferences whenever morphological data erroneously places fossil terminals. We explore this potential caveat using simulations, finding that the inference of node ages is surprisingly robust to misplaced fossils. Great news for phylogenetic paleobiologists!
11/2023: New paper on a paleontological mystery out in Current Biology
Nearly 30 years ago, Sam Ciurca found a strange fossil amidst Silurian eurypterids in Ontario. He referred to it as "the most beautiful fossil ever found", although its affinities were a mystery to him, and to everyone else. Welcome Rotaciurca superbus, a (potentially) planktonic cephalodiscid
10/2023: Invited talk at Scripps’ Marine Bio seminar series
Very excited to share my love for phylogenies with the community at Scripps Institution of Oceanography :)
08/2023: Mentee Zihui Shen successfully defended her BS/MS thesis
Awesome project combining molecular phylogenetics, µCT scanning, and traditional taxonomy, leading up to the description of three new species of wood-associated sea stars that will be coming out soon. Congrats!!
07/2023: Sea cucumber phylogenomic study makes the cover of Proceedings B!
We performed the first genome-scale interrogation of the cuke phylogeny, finding one region of the tree that displayed extreme sensitivity to model selection and defied resolution. The ancient rapid radiation of neoholothuriid sea cucumbers lives to be resolved another day. Several new transcriptomes sequenced for this study came from our 2021 deep-sea cruise on board R/V Falkor.