About The Lab

Simply put, I am interested in body size. My research aims to understand why organisms are the size they are, what the ecological and evolutionary consequences are of being a certain size, and the complex and dynamic trade-offs between physiology, life history, environment, phylogeny, and past history. All of these undisputedly interact to influence the ultimate size of an organism. I try to bridge the gap between paleontology and modern biology by examining factors influencing body size across both ecological and evolutionary time. I tend to work mostly with mammals because, frankly, I find them more interesting than other taxa. Maybe it’s the fur?

Current research projects range across a hierarchy of spatial and temporal scales: from field work examining life history trade-offs in modern rodent populations occupying extreme environments, to paleomidden work on local and regional adaptations of animals to late Quaternary climate, to museum and computer-based studies of continental and global distributions of long-dead mammals that span the entire Cenozoic.

Recent News

Welcome to my new website!

Note that we managed to wangle a term from paleontology as the title of the newest BioBlog! The Lazarus Effect was written by Mason and talks about the rediscovery of some thought to be extinct frogs (http://unm-bioblog.blogspot.com).

And, many congratulations to Dr. Ian Murray, who successfully defended his dissertation on Friday, April 13th!  Ian will be sorely missed around the lab and, especially, in the field.  I don't think there is a midden trip he's missed!

The latest installment of our BioBlog is now online! Entitled, "Shedding Light on Color-Blindness," this week's post, on color blindness, is by David Waid.