Research
I am open to enquiries about projects linked to my research areas. If you would like to discuss a project, please drop me an email.
Main Research Area– Dental Microwear Texture Analysis
My main research focuses on reconstructing the diets of modern and extinct reptiles through dental microwear texture analysis (DMTA). Microwear refers to the microscopic tooth surface textures that form during feeding as tooth-food interactions cause microscopic chipping, scratching and deformation of tooth enamel. The material properties of foods, i.e. the difficulty experienced in piercing/chewing food items, determines the types of microwear textures that form.
As a research fellow at the University of Birmingham I apply this technique in addition to biomechanical modelling to reconstruct the dietary ecology and evolution of Triassic dinosaurs and their archosaur relatives. This project investigates whether dinosaurs competed with other archosaurs for food in the Triassic, and the possible role of diet in explaining why dinosaurs and crocodylomorphs survived the Triassic-Jurassic mass extinction ~200 million years ago when all other archosaurs died out. This research is conducted with Richard Butler, Stephan Lautenschlager, Paul Barrett and Laura Porro.
My main research focuses on reconstructing the diets of modern and extinct reptiles through dental microwear texture analysis (DMTA). Microwear refers to the microscopic tooth surface textures that form during feeding as tooth-food interactions cause microscopic chipping, scratching and deformation of tooth enamel. The material properties of foods, i.e. the difficulty experienced in piercing/chewing food items, determines the types of microwear textures that form.
As a research fellow at the University of Birmingham I apply this technique in addition to biomechanical modelling to reconstruct the dietary ecology and evolution of Triassic dinosaurs and their archosaur relatives. This project investigates whether dinosaurs competed with other archosaurs for food in the Triassic, and the possible role of diet in explaining why dinosaurs and crocodylomorphs survived the Triassic-Jurassic mass extinction ~200 million years ago when all other archosaurs died out. This research is conducted with Richard Butler, Stephan Lautenschlager, Paul Barrett and Laura Porro.
Evolutionary tree of dinosaurs and "crocodile-line archosaurs" in the Triassic. Coloured bars denote the known time spans of each lineage, with colour denoting hypothesised diets. Red = carnivory, green = herbivory, yellow = omnivory.
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Skull of Paratypothorax, an armoured archosaur known as an aetosaur that lived ~210 million years ago in Germany. Specimen housed at the Stuttgart Natural History Museum
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For my PhD, I used DMTA to reconstruct the diets of pterosaurs; extinct flying reptiles that lived between 210 and 66 million years ago all over the world. This includes famous species such as Dimorphodon and Rhamphorhynchus, as well as lesser-known but equally interesting species such as Austriadactylus and Darwinopterus. As modern comparisons I sampled microwear from crocodilians and monitor lizards, including the infamous saltwater crocodile and komodo dragon. This research saw me visit collections in the UK, Germany, USA, Canada and China. You can find the results of this work here.
Other Current Projects
- Describing a long neglected ichthyosaur fossil from the Lapworth Museum collections
- Investigating chemical composition and microstrucure of cynodont (mammal-like reptiles) teeth from South Africa. With Claire Browning
- Reconstructing trophic interactions of extinct reptiles from the Solnhofen Archipelago with DMTA
- Reconstructing diets of Upper Cretaceous mosasaurs with DMTA. With Anne Schulp and Femke Holwerda
The rhynchocephalian (the group to which extant tuataras belong) Pleurosaurus, from the Solnhofen Archipelago, a 150 million-year-old formation from Germany. Specimen housed at the Jura Museum in Eichstatt, Germany,
Previous Projects
- Taxonomy of Paleogene and Neogene Caribbean seep molluscs. With Crispin Little and Fiona Gill.
- Dinosaur biogeographical structure and Mesozoic continental fragmentation: a network-based approach. With Alex Dunhill.
- Taxonomy of Pleistocene mammals from the Creswell Crags caves, UK. With Adam Smith.