What is the focus of your current research at UM?

Broadly, my research focuses on understanding the general patterns underlying fish evolution. Currently, I am using fossils to investigate how jaws first diversified in bony fishes.

Computed tomography reconstruction of the jaw of Gogosardina coatesi, a Devonian basal actinopterygian described from the Canning Basin, Australia.

Jaws represent an important interface between fishes and their environment, through the capture and processing of prey. They can tell us a lot about an organism's feeding ecology and how they interacted with their environment. Bony fishes are divided into two groups: ray-finned and lobe-finned fishes. Ray-finned fishes dominate modern aquatic ecosystems, representing over 33,000 species. This group possesses substantial morphological diversity, including species such as eels, flounders, anglerfishes, pufferfishes, and tuna. In contrast, living lobe-finned fishes number only eight species of lungfishes and coelacanths, groups often called “living fossils”. However, when these groups first diversified during the Devonian era (~419 million years ago) lobe-finned fishes were substantially more diverse, while ray-finned fishes comprise less than 20 species. I am using three-dimensional CT scans of well-preserved fossil jaws to understand this dramatic shift in diversity over time and how the origin of jaw evolution in bony fishes has shaped their present day diversity.

Learn more about Emily's research on her website or find her on google scholar.

Reconstruction of the jaw of Watsonichthys pectinatus, an extinct actinopterygian that lived during the Carboniferous.

2. How were you drawn into paleontology?

As an evolutionary biologist, I use paleontology to fully understand the entire evolutionary history of certain groups. Fossils are a key source of information about extinct species, so I rely on fossil data in my own research to gain a better understanding of anatomy, ecology, phylogenetic inference and more. Without paleontology and the incorporation of fossil data into my analyses, my research would not be able to uncover patterns of change through time, such as how body size in fishes has changed over the past 100 million years in response to changing ocean temperatures.

3. What is the thing you like most about your work?

I enjoy being able to ask questions that nobody else knows the answers to yet. There is a lot we simply don't know about fish evolution, and I'm excited to be working on this topic.