Tropical marine ecosystem dynamics across time and space
Evolutionary success was determined by mode of reproduction in cupuladriid bryozoans: Closure of the Panama Isthmus 3 million years ago led to a rapid reduction in primary productivity across the Caribbean. In response, cupuladriid bryozoans underwent a major transition, with evolutionary winners and losers dictated by how much sex they were having. Click on the image to download the pdf.
Hotspots of high species diversity are a prominent feature of modern global biodiversity patterns. Fossil and molecular evidence is starting to reveal the history of these hotspots. There have been at least three marine biodiversity hotspots during the past 50 million years. They have moved across almost half the globe, with their timing and locations coinciding with major tectonic events. The birth and death of successive hotspots highlights the link between environmental change and biodiversity patterns. The antiquity of the taxa in the modern Indo-Australian Archipelago hotspot emphasizes the role of pre-Pleistocene events in shaping modern diversity patterns. Click on the image for the pdf of the paper.
Since the late Mesozoic, several bryozoan groups have occupied unstable soft-sediment habitats by adopting a free-living and motile mode of life. Today, the free-living bryozoans often dominate epibenthic faunal communities in these expansive habitats, yet their biology and ecology remain poorly understood. This study examines their unique mode of life by exploring the relationship between form and function in the free-living Cupuladriidae of tropical America. Click on the image for the pdf of the paper.
Most people think Panama has two seas – the Caribbean and the Pacific. In fact it has three and they are each very distinct. This paper presents detailed hydrological measurements from the two seas along the Pacific coast of Panama: the Gulf of Panama and the Gulf of Chiriqui, and characterizes the environmental differences between them. Click on the image for the pdf of the paper.
We discovered a two million year lag in Caribbean extinction after the environmental and ecological events responsible. This finding challenges the conventional wisdom that evolutionary cause and effect should necessarily coincide. Click on the image for the pdf of the paper.
Download the Caribbean extinctions poster
A full understanding of any climate requires an appreciation of the amount of seasonal variation in temperature. This is important not only for present-day climatology but also for investigation of ancient environments. In this paper I present a novel approach to reveal how seasonal an ancient sea was by measuring the amount of variation in zooid size within colonies of fossil cheilostome bryozoans.
Click on the image for the pdf…
O'Dea Lab 
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