George Gaylord Simpson Prize

Earth’s ozone layer is a crucial prerequisite for the evolution of complex life on land. This research demonstrates that Earth’s evolving marine iodine cycle has fundamentally shaped the stability and abundance of the ozone layer for approximately two billion years following the initial oxygenation of the atmosphere. The resulting elevated flux of UV radiation may have restricted complex life to the ocean and potentially explains the relatively late colonization of multicellular life on land. 

In this paper, we develop a new machine-learning pipeline, trained on >11,000 original measurements, that can predict whether extinct species were highly or fully aquatic and had soft-tissue flippers with >90% accuracy. Using this pipeline, we reconstruct the evolutionary history of aquatic habits in all major groups of seafaring reptiles, revealing unexpectedly complex patterns and constraints governing their marine invasions. 

Determining the origin, introduction, and spread of invasive species is essential for future prevention but is often impossible retroactively. Here, we propose Foraminifera, micro-organisms with calcium carbonate shells, as invasion indicators. Our innovative approach leverages interdisciplinary methods (maritime history, paleontology, ecology) to uncover the timing of and reason(s) for the invasion of the invasive Ammonia confertitesta in Long Island Sound.