Education

B.S. Ohio University, 2007

Research Interests

I am a paleobotanist who uses plant fossils to answer evolutionary and ecological questions. I am interested in the early evolution of flowering plants as a system for studying the ecological dynamics of evolutionary radiations. I use sedimentology to interpret depositional environments and reconstruct habitats in which Early Cretaceous plants grew, and I use morphology and phylogenetics to understand the biology of Early Cretaceous plants. My field work is currently based in the Bighorn Basin, Wyoming, where I collect plant fossils from the Cloverly Formation. The Cloverly Formation spans the appearance of flowering plants in the North American fossil record, allowing me to examine changes before and after this critical event. I am studying the spread of angiosperm lineages across habitat types represented in the Cloverly deposits. I am also assessing their impact on the non-angiosperm communities. More broadly, I am examining Early Cretaceous plant fossil collections form across North America in order to understand how angiosperm diversity spread across the continent.

Personal Research Web Site:

• Nathan Jud