Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales

Graduate Student, Paleobiología

Complutensian University of Madrid

Thesis Title: Evolutionary and ecological analyses of ruminants based on phylogenetic data.

About

One of the main questions in paleontology and evolution refers to diversification patterns. Whether speciation and extinction events are bunched in time, concomitant with climatic or tectonic episodes, or whether such events are affected by evolutionary innovations are major issues in macroevolution that still remain little understood. In my thesis, I tackled these problems using a phylogenetic framework and ruminants as my study group. Specifically, I studied the impact of diet and ecological specialization on their speciation rates. I also discovered that the most important shifts in ruminant diversification occurred in concert with other faunal pulses and climatic events.

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