Roger Benson

1 month ago | biorxiv.org | Xavier A. Jenkins |Roger Benson |David Ford |Claire Browning

AbstractLiving reptiles include more than 20,000 species with disparate ecologies. Direct anatomical evidence from Neodiapsida, which includes the reptile crown-group Sauria and its closest extinct relatives, shows that this diversity originates from a single common ancestor that lived some 257 million years ago in the Paleozoic. However, the evolutionary assembly of crown reptile traits is poorly understood due to the lack of anatomically close relatives of Neodiapsida.

Jan 20, 2025 | biorxiv.org | Roger Close |Roger Benson |Wolfgang Kiessling |Erin E. Saupe

AbstractReefs are important hotspots of marine biodiversity today, and acted as cradles of diversification in the geological past. However, we know little about how the diversity of reef-supporting regions varied through deep time, and how this differed from other regions. We quantified regional diversity patterns in reef-supporting and non-reef-supporting regions in the fossil record of Phanerozoic marine invertebrates.

Nov 26, 2024 | biorxiv.org | Xavier A. Jenkins |Roger Benson |David Ford |Late Paleozoic Outgroups

AbstractLiving reptiles include more than 20,000 species with disparate ecologies. Direct anatomical evidence from Neodiapsida, which includes the reptile crown-group Sauria and its closest extinct relatives, shows that this diversity originates from a single common reptilian ancestor that lived some 255 million years ago in the Paleozoic. However, the evolutionary assembly of crown reptile traits is poorly understood due to the lack of anatomically close outgroups to Neodiapsida.