Crossing the Palaeontological-Ecological Gap This summer, CPEG2018 will take place in the School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, 30-31 August 2018. This British Ecological Society, Macroecology Special Interest Group, meeting aims to bring palaeontologists, palaeoecologists and ecologists together to discuss data and methods. For a truly synthetic understanding of evolutionary and ecological processes, … More CPEG2018

Unfortunately, I am unable to attend #PalAss17 due to family reasons. Here is an electronic version of my student’s, Karolina Zarzyczny, poster (click for high res. version), just in case the physical copy doesn’t materialize…

Four years on from the previous meeting in Argentina, 2018 will see the return of the Palaeontological “World Cup” with the 5th International Palaeontological Congress held in Paris from July 9th to July 13th. Myself, David Bond and Paul Wignall will be hosting a scientific session entitled “Life in the time of Pangaea: volcanism, warming, … More Pangaean extinctions @IPC5 Paris

Palaeo@Leeds ran a stand at the Yorkshire Fossil Festival back in September. Read the following report by SEE Leeds PhD student Adam Woodhouse to find out what we got up to… The Yorkshire Fossil Festival represents an exciting opportunity to engage with families and local schools in all aspects of the world of Geology and … More Palaeo@Leeds @ the Yorkshire Fossil Festival

We (Rachel Warnock, Erin Saupe, and I) will be following up on our successful #GSA2017 technical session on computational palaeobiology with a session on palaeobiological modelling at EGU (European Geosciences Union General Assembly) 2018. SSP.4.3. Advances in palaeobiological modelling The EGU conference will be held in Vienna, Austria, 8-13 April 2018 Abstract submission is now … More Palaeobiological modelling @ #EGU18

New paper published online today in Palaeontology on the ecological effects of the Late Triassic mass extinction. Read it here, it’s Open Access. Dunhill, A.M., Foster, W.J., Sciberras, J., and Twitchett, R.J. 2017. Impact of the Late Triassic mass extinction on functional diversity and composition of marine ecosystems. Palaeontology. Published online on 20 October 2017. doi:10.1111/pala.12332. … More Life goes on for marine ecosystems after the Late Triassic mass extinction

New paper out in Palaeontology: it’s Open Access, so read it here. We use empirical and simulated data along with information transfer statistics to show that using formation counts as a sampling proxy to model bias in the fossil record can lead to erroneous biodiversity estimates that may be further from the truth than raw … More Why we shouldn’t use formation counts to correct the fossil record

Bethany Allen has joined the Palaeo@Leeds group as a NERC DTP postgraduate researcher having just completed a MSc in Palaeobiology at the University of Bristol. Bethany’s PhD project is entitled “Biodiversity in the extreme world of Pangaea” and she will be investigating the spatial distribution of biodiversity in the aftermath of the Late Permian mass … More Welcome Bethany Allen!

University of Leeds graduate, Fiona Pye, was awarded the “Engagement in Research Award” at the School of Earth and Environment Graduation Ceremony 2017. This prestigious honour was awarded for work Fiona carried out as a Palaeontological Association Undergraduate Intern in summer 2016. The project investigated size changes in brachiopods across the Triassic-Jurassic boundary. You can … More Fiona Pye Research Award

Visit the The Conversation to read an article I wrote about the mass extinctions of the past and whether they shed any light on the current biodiversity decline. Are we currently in a mass extinction? Only time will tell… https://theconversation.com/five-mass-extinctions-and-what-we-can-learn-from-them-about-the-planet-today-79971 An article on mass extinctions I wrote for @ConversationUK https://t.co/oq8zjCDIca — Alex Dunhill (@AlexDunhill) June … More Mass extinctions of the past