Research

Current research: Aspects of my current research include skeletal architecture of conodont apparatuses, functional morphology, feeding mechanisms, and diversity of early agnathans, and taxonomy of Carboniferous conodonts. My principal research is funded by a NERC Advanced Research Fellowship, and focuses on the functional morphology and diversity of early vertebrates (primarily conodonts and other fossil jawless vertebrates). This research aims to generate constrained and testable hypotheses of feeding mechanisms in extinct jawless vertebrates and apply this to problems of early vertebrate evolution. For more details see the links on the left. Or click here for examples of wear and microwear patterns on conodont elements.
I am also part of the team producing the JNCC Geological Conservation Review Volume dealing with British Lower Carboniferous Stratigraphy.

Other ongoing research includes work with Paul Hart (Department of Biology, University of Leicester) and our research Assistant Dave Baines, on a NERC funded project to inveestigate "Tooth Wear, Niche Differentiation and Stickleback Speciation over Evolutionary Timescales"

Previous postdoctoral research
January 1990 - July 1992: Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Royal Ontario Museum & University of Toronto. Research focused on: 1. Taxonomy, palaeoecology and stratigraphic potential of unusual shallow shelf conodont faunas from Northern England and Eastern Canada; 2. Growth and function of ozarkodinid conodont apparatuses.
August 1992 - August 1997: NERC Research Fellowship. Research focused on conodont palaeobiology, particularly architecture, growth and functional morphology of complex conodont apparatuses. Particular achievements included: the reconstruction of skeletal architecture and analysis of functional morphology of conodonts with complex apparatuses; development of a new method for analysis of flattening in fossils; development of ontogenetic tests of function, and the demonstration that conodonts could not have been suspension feeders; generation of a standard numerical growth model for ozarkodinid conodonts; the recognition of wear on conodont elements, and the development of new microwear based techniques of functional analysis of conodonts. Results published in Nature were included among the top 100 science stories of 1995 by Discover magazine.

PhD research: (NERC studentship) Dinantian shallow shelf conodonts of the Northumberland trough. Project integrating sedimentology, micropalaeontology, and biostratigraphy; resolved outstanding problems in conodont palaeoecology and taxonomy, and produced first workable biostratigraphic zonation for Northumberland Trough (with important implications for development and evolution of the basin).