Ciara O'Donovan

 I have always loved animals and been interested in their reproduction, evolution, diversity and conservation. During my academic training and career thus far I have focused on trying to characterise and understand the evolutionary processes that have acted over hundreds of millions of years to produce the astounding diversity of organisms we see alive today and those we have evidence of through the fossil record. My work seeks to explain elements of the natural world as varied as how a single dinosaur species resulted in hundreds of species that conquered the globe and how vertebrate body size came to range over four orders of magnitude. Much of the information my work uncovers can fill the gaps in fossil records and enables a view into deep time that would otherwise be impossible. This view in turn helps gain an understanding of how the world around us has been shaped and how it may react to changing times ahead.

Research Areas

• Macroevolution
• Macroecology
• Phylogenetic trees
• Biogeography through deep time
• Vertebrate evolution
• Rates of evolution