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Martin R. Smith

@palaeosmith.bsky.social
102 followers 7 following 24 posts

Palaeontologist developing phylogenetic and stratigraphic methods to understand the origins of life's rich diversity

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Martin R. Smith @palaeosmith.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
My new package Coreset is now on CRAN. ms609.github.io/Coreset/ Use its MaxMin Diversity selector to obtain an unbiased and representative subsample of most parsimonious trees (paper forthcoming...)
ms609.github.io
Discrete Diversity, Dispersion, and Coverage Subset Selection
Solves discrete location objectives on a distance matrix or Euclidean coordinate set. The Max-Min Diversity (MMDP / p-dispersion) objective, which maximizes the minimum pairwise distance within a sele...
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Martin R. Smith @palaeosmith.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Hemichordate gills weren't made for breathing: vertebrates pioneered the use of gills for gas exchange journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/...
journals.biologists.com
Gills are not the primary site of gas exchange in the suspension-feeding hemichordate Protoglossus graveolens
Highlighted Article: New functional data from hemichordates provide critical support for a vertebrate origin of gas exchange at gills.
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Martin R. Smith @palaeosmith.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Fast and innovative methods for building consensus trees: package ConsTree is now on CRAN constree.github.io
cran.r-project.org
ConsTree: Fast Algorithms for Phylogenetic Consensus Trees
Efficient construction of phylogenetic consensus trees. Methods include strict, majority-rule, majority-rule (+), loose (combinable component / semi-strict), greedy, Adams, frequency difference, R*, a...
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Martin R. Smith @palaeosmith.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Ever wondered which characters support individual clades in a tree? My new method maps phylogenetic support across a dataset. doi.org/10.1093/sysb... Try it in R: pak::pkg_install("ms609/TreeSearch@cpp-search") ?TreeSearch::ClusteringConcordance
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Martin R. Smith @palaeosmith.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Tree space mapping made easy: Map landscapes of phylogenetic trees in TreeDist without installing R! ms609.github.io/TreeDist/app/ (Allow a minute for the app to load.)
ms609.github.io
Shiny App
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Martin R. Smith @palaeosmith.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
It's easier to lose a morphological trait than to gain one. When models and datasets reflect this asymmetry, phylogenetic reconstructions improve. doi.org/10.1093/sysb...
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Martin R. Smith @palaeosmith.bsky.social · 24/11/2025
Burgess Shale-type preservation of Ediacaran Fronds www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
The terminal Ediacaran Tongshan Lagerstätte from South China - Nature Communications
Here, the authors present Ediacaran fossils from the Tongshan Lagerstätte (South China), including Burgess Shale-type rangeomorphs preserved both with fronds and holdfasts. They use sedimentary and ch...
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Martin R. Smith @palaeosmith.bsky.social · 10/11/2025
Chromosomes point to Lophophorate monophyly www.cell.com/current-biol... I wonder what this topology means for the origins of Bryozoans?
cell.com
Phoronid genome supports a monophyletic Lophophorata
The definition and membership of Lophophorata, including brachiopods, phoronids, and bryozoans, have been debated for over a century. Lewin et al. show that phoronids and bryozoans share multiple deri...
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Martin R. Smith @palaeosmith.bsky.social · 03/11/2025
There were at least five independent origins of lichens – and at least one had occurred by the Devonian www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1...
Reconstruciton of Spongiophyton
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Martin R. Smith @palaeosmith.bsky.social · 28/10/2025
Is the anus a gonopore? Origins of the bilaterian through-gut www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Molecular evidence from xenacoelomorph gonopore formation supports homology with the bilaterian anus - Nature Ecology & Evolution
The evolutionary origin of the bilaterian gut with two openings is debated. Expression in xenacoelomorphs, the sister group to bilaterians, of genes involved in bilaterian gut patterning suggests that...
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Reposted by Martin R. Smith
Andrew Millard @archaeometer.bsky.social · 27/10/2025
Our new paper is out: StratoBayes: a Bayesian method for automated stratigraphic correlation and age modelling doi.org/10.5194/gchr... with @palaeosmith.bsky.social Kilian Eichenseer & Matthias Sinnesael
doi.org
StratoBayes: a Bayesian method for automated stratigraphic correlation and age modelling
Abstract. Stratigraphic correlation and age modelling are fundamental to reconstructing Earth's history, biological evolution, and palaeoclimate, and underpin the exploration for subsurface resources....
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Martin R. Smith @palaeosmith.bsky.social · 29/09/2025
Have we reached 'peak fossil'? Sampling bias hardly affects the lizard fossil record – suggesting that new finds are unlikely to overhaul our understanding? doi.org/10.1017/pab....
doi.org
Taphonomic megabiases constrain phylogenetic information in the squamate fossil record | Paleobiology | Cambridge Core
Taphonomic megabiases constrain phylogenetic information in the squamate fossil record
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Martin R. Smith @palaeosmith.bsky.social · 15/09/2025
Fossil mushrooms from the Cretaceous – almost fresh enough to top a pizza with! doi.org/10.1093/botl...
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Martin R. Smith @palaeosmith.bsky.social · 20/06/2025
What was burning? Evidence of Ediacaran wildfires doi.org/10.1016/j.gl...
Modern wildfire (BBC)
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Martin R. Smith @palaeosmith.bsky.social · 09/05/2025
An early "mollusc" reconsidered: Is Shishana, in fact, a chancelloriid? Read our new paper @science.org www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Fossil of Shishania
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Martin R. Smith @palaeosmith.bsky.social · 04/04/2025
StratoBayes: our quantitative tool for automated stratigraphic correlation. Read the preprint: egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/20...
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Martin R. Smith @palaeosmith.bsky.social · 03/03/2025
Is a borrowed bacterial gene key to the origins of biomineralization in animals? academic.oup.com/gbe/article/...
academic.oup.com
Horizontal Transfer of msp130 Genes and the Evolution of Metazoan Biocalcification
Abstract. The formation of calcified skeletons is crucial for the development, physiology, and ecology of many marine metazoans. The evolutionary origins o
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Martin R. Smith @palaeosmith.bsky.social · 17/02/2025
Origin of the anus: was a gonopore key to inventing the through gut? www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
biorxiv.org
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Martin R. Smith @palaeosmith.bsky.social · 06/02/2025
Derived Cirratuliform annelids in Cambrian SCF deposits – possible relatives of Iotuba? onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
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Martin R. Smith @palaeosmith.bsky.social · 06/01/2025
A Cambrian arms race? www.cell.com/current-biol...
cell.com
Adaptive responses in Cambrian predator and prey highlight the arms race during the rise of animals
Bicknell et al. explore the hypothesis that predation was a major ecological driver of early animal evolution. A study of the early Cambrian tommotiid Lapworthella fasciculata shows a correlation between increasing shell thickness and predation intensity (evidenced by perforations) over time, representing the oldest known microevolutionary arms race.
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Martin R. Smith @palaeosmith.bsky.social · 06/01/2025
Burial not required for exceptional fossilization? www.nature.com/articles/s43...
nature.com
Kaolinite induces rapid authigenic mineralisation in unburied shrimps - Communications Earth & Environment
Instantaneous burial capturing animals alive may not be prerequisite for exceptional marine animal preservation and fossilization, according to experiments on marine and freshwater shrimps and cryogen...
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Martin R. Smith @palaeosmith.bsky.social · 20/12/2024
Low but dynamic oxygen levels as the backdrop to the Cambrian radiation www.research.ed.ac.uk/en/publicati...
research.ed.ac.uk
Low oxygen but dynamic marine redox conditions permitted the Cambrian Radiation
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Reposted by Martin R. Smith
Department of Earth Sciences at Durham University, UK @durhamearthsci.bsky.social · 04/12/2024
🚨Job Alert!🚨 We are recruiting an Associate Professor in Environmental Sustainability! The post is associated with a new MSc in Environmental Sustainability which is due to start in October 2026. Please apply by 31 January, and please share this with your networks! durham.taleo.net/careersectio...
durham.taleo.net
Associate Professor in Environmental Sustainability (EARTH_01)
Click the link provided to see the complete job description.
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Martin R. Smith @palaeosmith.bsky.social · 20/11/2024
Apply now for two PhD projects modelling stratigraphy to understand the evolutionary past and geological future iapetus2.ac.uk/studentships... iapetus2.ac.uk/studentships...
iapetus2.ac.uk
Computational innovation for the energy transition: Bayesian stratigraphic correlation of subsurface data
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