Paul Pearson

Paul Pearson is a Royal Society University Research Fellow in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol. His main research interest is organic evolution in the context of environmental change. He specializes in the study of microfossils from the deep sea, which provide an unrivalled record of evolutionary change over many millions of years. He is particularly interested in questions like: How can fossil species be recognized? How do species originate? Do they have characteristic lifespans? Does the tree of life have a "random" shape, or are there patterns and biases within? What causes extinction? How does evolution interact with processes of environmental change?