New paper in press on a Late Devonian fossil plant assemblage from Australia, with lycopsids (Leptophloeum), cladoxylopsids (Denglongia), and progymnosperm (Archaeopteris/Callixylon) remains 🌿⛏️ #paleobotany #FossilFriday doi.org/10.1016/j.pa...

Our new paper is online! We found that 1) today's shark & ray diversity was already reached ~100Ma; 2) that the K/Pg extinction was not catastrophic; 3) that the max diversity was reached ~50Ma; and 4) that today's diversity is depleted compared to the past. www.cell.com/current-biol...

New paper by @pimientoc.bsky.social & team: #biodiversity of sharks and rays over time. As predators they shape marine ecosystems. Many of the ~1200 living species are in danger, mainly from overfishing, and in need of conservation action. more on shark conservation👇 www.cell.com/current-biol...

Excited to share our new investigation of Prototaxites! We found no support for a fungal affinity and instead suggest it is best considered an entirely extinct complex eukaryotic lineage Great team effort @transitionalform.bsky.social Corentin Loron, and many others! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Our paper on the mysterious Devonian organism Prototaxites has now finally been published! See the paper here (www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...) and our explainer thread below! Prototaxites reconstruction by Matt Humpage

If you’re interested in extinction risk, please check out our new paper in @science.org led by my former PhD student Cooper: www.science.org/doi/full/10....

Contingent responses of diversity and disparity of different animal groups to the P-Tr mass extinction: "Ammonoids...brachiopods exhibit refilling of vacated morphospace of shell outlines, Ostracods underwent adaptive radiation" www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... 🧪 #Geology ⚒️ #Paleobio #EvoBio

Why does life explore so few of the forms it could possibly take? Using fractal descriptors, this #scienceadvances paper shows that Earth’s biosphere clusters around simple shapes, reflecting deep evolutionary constraints. @artemyte.bsky.social @manlius.bsky.social www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1...

We are very pleased to share our new research, investigating the morphology of Zosterophyllum.

A 407-million-year-old fossil from northern Scotland is changing what we know about plant evolution! New analysis of Horneophyton reveals how plants went from centimetres tall to growing to enormous heights! Find out more about this fossil 👇 www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/new...

Excited to share our new paper where we find that the rise, decline and fall of clades is not explained by the usual suspects (diversity-dependence, ecological opportunities) but rather by species' insidious loss of macroevolutionary fitness: www.nature.com/articles/s41... 1/3

✨ Paper spotlight ✨ (🧵 1/6) Structural and physiological constraints on arborescent lycopsid establishment and growth nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Cellularly preserved chlorophyte from the 518 million year old Chengjiang biota onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Excited to share our research on the evolution of fossil forests from the Devonian to Jurassic! By analyzing 38 global fossil forests, we explored key parameters to better understand how these fossil forests developed over time. doi.org/10.1016/j.ea...

Is it a lizard? Is it a snake? Maybe a 'false snake'?? As that's what its name means in Gaelic! Hello to Breugnathair, a new fossil from the Jurassic of Skye with a curious mix of snake & lizard features, showing that early squamate evolution was complex www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Just in time for #FossilFriday 🦖 What are the big questions in #paleontology today? dx.doi.org/10.1017/pab.2025.10042 Nearly 200 scientists worldwide came together to map where our field is headed. Here’s the story 👇

Check out our perceptive on the Emerging uses of artificial intelligence in deep time biodiversity research www.nature.com/articles/s44... #AI #paleontology

Interested in inferring biodiversity in deep time? 📈📉 Check out our new R package DeepDiveR, led by @rebeccasaurus.bsky.social and now published in @methodsinecoevol.bsky.social, helping you to prepare datasets for machine learning inference with DeepDive 🤿 doi.org/10.1111/2041...

🗞️New publication🗞️ How do neighbourhood diversity effects on tree growth change with climatic conditions?🌳🌲🔆🌧️ We adress this question in our new study in @natecoevo.nature.com led by Liting Zheng. www.nature.com/articles/s41... /w @liting-zheng.bsky.social, Peter Reich & #TreeDivNet

Revealing article, showing that there is a significant relation between the biomass of oceanic animals and their dynamics, including during extinction events, through the Phanerozoic Eon. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... 🧪 ⚒️ #Paleobio #Geology #EvoBio #Macroecology

📢 deeptime 📦 v. 2.2.0 is now on #CRAN: - geom_text_phylo() for adding labels to radial phylogenies 🏷️ - timescales updated to ICS 2024/12 🗓️ - compatibility with ggplot2 4.0.0 📈 Patch notes 👉 williamgearty.com/deeptime/news/ Docs 👉 williamgearty.com/deeptime/ #rstats #dataviz #geology #deeptime

The palaeogeographic evolution of microplates in the Central Asian Orogenic Belt from the perspective of Devonian plant.

New Article: "Leaf venation network evolution across clades and scales" rdcu.be/epLNP Evolution of leaf venation networks, from fewer, corrugated veins to high vein density and smoother loops. Herbivory as a potential driver of venation architectural changes.

New Article: "Ordovician marine Charophyceae and insights into land plant derivations" rdcu.be/eoSkA Marine Charophyceae fossils from the Upper Ordovician confirm that morphological innovations key to the evolution of terrestrial flora predate emergence of land plants.

Tree ferns formed the first forest on Earth.