John Alroy
John Alroy is a paleobiologist born in New York in 1966 and now residing in Sydney, Australia.
Area of expertise
Alroy specializes in diversity curves, speciation, and extinction of North American fossil mammals and Phanerozoic marine invertebrates, connecting regional and local diversity, taxonomic composition, body mass distributions, ecomorphology, and phylogenetic patterns to intrinsic diversity dynamics, evolutionary trends, mass extinctions, and the effects of global climate change.In a 3 September 2010 online article by Hugh Collins, a contributor for AOL Online Science, Alroy was quoted in a newly released study paper from Sydney's Macquarie University that "It would be unwise to assume that any large number of species can be lost today without forever altering the basic biological character of Earth's oceans."
Education
He graduated from Hunter College High School in 1984.He then received his BA from Reed College, Department of Biology, in 1989.
And then his PHD from University of Chicago, Committee on Evolutionary Biology, in 1994.
Professional life
- Smithsonian Institution, Predoctoral internship, Department of Paleobiology and Evolution of Terrestrial Ecosystems consortium, 1989–1990.
- University of Arizona, Research Training Group in the Analysis of Biodiversification, 1994–1996.
- National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, Post-doctoral Fellow, 1998–2000, and Center Associate, 2000–2010.
- Marine Science Institute, University of California, Santa Barbara, Assistant and later Associate Researcher, 2000–2010.
- Macquarie University, Future Fellow, 2010–present.
Honors
- 1994 Romer Prize of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology.
- 2007 Charles Schuchert Award of the Paleontological Society.
- 2010 NAS Award for Scientific Reviewing from the National Academy of Sciences.
Appearance event ordination
"AEO age estimates are preferable because they are objective, repeatable, and quantitative. That's because AEO uses explicitly recorded and clearly defined numerical data, and because it uses algorithmic search and optimization criteria instead of verbal argumentation."
Selected publications
- The shifting balance of diversity among major marine animal groups. Science 329:1191–1194.
- Speciation and extinction in the fossil record of North American mammals. pp. 301–323 in R. Butlin, J. Bridle, and D. Schluter, Speciation and Patterns of Diversity. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
- Dynamics of origination and extinction in the marine fossil record. PNAS 105:11536-11542.
- Phanerozoic trends in the global diversity of marine invertebrates. Science 321:97–100.
- Statistical independence of escalatory ecological trends in Phanerozoic marine invertebrates. Science 312:897–900.
- A multispecies overkill simulation of the end-Pleistocene megafaunal mass extinction. Science 292:1893–1896.
- Global climate change and North American mammalian evolution by John Alroy, Paul L. Koch, and James C. Zachos; The Paleontological Society.
- Successive approximations of diversity curves: Ten more years in the library. Geology 28:1023–1026.
- Equilibrial diversity dynamics in North American mammals. pp. 232–287 in M. L. McKinney and J. Drake, Biodiversity Dynamics: Turnover of Populations, Taxa and Communities. Columbia University Press, York.
- Cope's rule and the dynamics of body mass evolution in North American mammals. Science 280:731–734.
- Constant extinction, constrained diversification, and uncoordinated stasis in North American mammals. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 127:285–311.