In this episode of Palaeo After Dark, the gang discusses two papers that use morphometric analysis to test how strongly ecology imprints on evolution, which culminates in Curt drunkenly stumbling his way through hierarchy theory. Also, James and Curt talk about the wonder that is Machete Kills, and Amanda wins an argument only using the word “meh”.

References

Mitchell, Jonathan S., and Peter J. Makovicky. "Low ecological disparity in Early Cretaceous birds." Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 281.1787 (2014): 20140608.

Hopkins, Melanie J. "The environmental structure of trilobite morphological disparity." Paleobiology 40.3 (2014): 352-373. 

Eldredge, Niles, and Stanley N. Salthe. "Hierarchy and evolution." Oxford surveys in evolutionary biology 1 (1984): 184-208.