Welcome to the WagEnd PaleoFusion Page

I am Peter Wagner, a computational paleobiologist at the University of Nebraska State Museum & University of Nebraska, Lincoln.  Before that, I was a curator at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago.

My main research interests are rates and trends in morphological evolution and the linkage of macroecological theory with sampling theory.  My empirical interests concern Paleozoic gastropods and other molluscs, although (sadly!) I no longer am able to do much research on snails.  My methodological interests concern phylogeny reconstruction, particularly how to accommodate sampling theory and different models of character change, and ways to assess alternate hypotheses about different rate distributions. 

Currently my research focuses on:

1. 1. Prior probabilities of first and last appearance times given distributions of finds and rock units in the chronostratigraphic record;

   2. Simultaneous tests of character evolution models, diversification models and phylogeny;

   3. Speciation modes;

   4. Relative effects of extrinsic ecological drivers and intrinsic clade properties during the Ordovician Radiations;

   5. Modeling distributions of origination & extinction rates among contemporaneous taxa.

Past research focuses (that sometimes become "current" again!) include:

1. Modelling abundance distributions in fossil and extant communities;

2. Phylogenetic methods, particularly on the use of stratigraphic data to restrict possible hypotheses of relationships;

3. Morphological disparity and rates of evolution across phylogeny;

4. Paleozoic Mollusc phylogenetics.