My empirical work focuses on the evolution of body size and shape in mammals; in particular, how similar changes may arise repeatedly within a lineage as modification of the rates and/or timing of growth and development. Subjects of study have included the multiple, parallel instances of dwarfism in insular fossil elephants, of gigantism in island rodents, and of size reduction in tropical squirrels. We address related issues in different organismal systems: for example, the role of heterochrony in the repeated evolution of flightlessness in island birds, or the evolutionary modification of embryonic development in the diversification of a clade of snakes.
Conceptual work has concentrated on examining the biological basis of homology; explaining how, for instance, gross phenotypic traits may be conserved despite changes in the genetic and developmental processes producing them.
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