Holbrook Lab @ Rowan

Understanding the relationships among living and extinct perissodactyls is necessary for understanding the evolution of this group. Morphology provides the primary data for studying the phylogeny of the early fossil members of this group.

The period shortly after the extinction of the dinosaurs witnesses the appearance of a number of archaic, enigmatic groups of mammals, including some once thought to be early relatives or even ancestors of living lineages of "hoofed" mammals. Understanding how these groups fit into the mammalian phylogenetic tree has implications for understanding when the various lineages of mammals diversified, and what role the end-Cretaceous extinction played in that.

The independent evolution of similar traits is a common observation in evolutionary biology, and the evolutionary history of perissodactyls exhibits this in several complex traits, such as body size and tooth surface complexity. We explore the evolution of these traits using three-dimensional geometric morphometrics and comparative phylogenetic methods.

An important broader impact of this research is educating students and the general public about evolution and the history of life.

I authored a textbook for introductory biology students on evolution through the lens of the scientific method.

Introduction to the Science of Evolution