My research addresses questions of evolutionary mechanism, paleoecology, and paleoenvironmental reconstruction during the early history of fossilized metazoans. The extensive and continuous fossil record of trilobites provides the best opportunity for dissecting the detailed anatomy of early Paleozoic radiations, and for constraining the faunal conditions that prevailed during this time interval. I am committed to detailed specimen and field-based analyses which address research questions from an empirical basis.

  My work has sought to document and account for patterns of variation in developmental processes among trilobite species using biometric approaches (e.g. 1-5). This research has provided insight into the factors responsible for the exceptional rate of metazoan diversification during the Cambrian radiation(1). Recent work suggests that the availability of empty ecospace may have been the principal reason for the exceptional rate of morphological evolution during the Cambrian(5).

  I seek to understand trilobites as living animals(6-8) in the context of the environments in which they were preserved(9-11), and to apply data on the temporal (14-17) and spatial(4,12,15,16) occurrence of taxa to other areas of earth science. I have devised new ways to retrieve data from deformed specimens(15,17), and am interested in defining the limits of paleobiological and temporal resolution that are possible using fossil species(6,18,19).

  Current morphometric analyses of articulated species from the Cambrian will yield insight into the developmental constraints, and life-history strategies of early trilobite clades. Integration of these data with phylogenetic analyses will test whether morphological constraint documented in later Cambrian trilobites is linked to specific character arrays or ecologic strategies. This work will clarify the evolutionary framework of the Cambrian radiation.

  By seeking to improve our basic understanding of the lower Paleozoic world, and by using these data to address appropriate paleobiological questions, my work attempts to balance the need for a more comprehensive Paleozoic database with the challenge of exploring new frontiers in paleontology.

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