Insects’ massive taxonomic diversification over the past 325 million years has been attributed primarily to three factors: insect–plant interactions, wings, and holometaboly (complete metamorphosis). Insect–plant interactions have escalated in a stepwise fashion whereas wings originated once and led to an immediate increase in insect diversity.

My overarching goal is to determine the mechanisms through which, and the temporal and taxonomic scales at which, insect diversity has increased because of wings, holometaboly, and interactions with plants. My research methods include detailed morphological investigations of insects and plants as well as large-scale quantitative studies. The findings of this research program have wide-ranging implications for many topics that have motivated paleobiological studies over the past decades, such as the influence of morphological innovations on evolutionary rates, and the role of contingency in determining ecosystem structure.

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Click through to learn more about my paleontological research and my work on the wings of extant Lepidoptera.