Birds across the end Cretaceous mass extinction

Presenter: Chris Torres, Ph.D., Assistant Professor Department of Biological Science, UOP

Sixty six (66) million years ago, an asteroid hit Earth and killed more than 75% of all life on the planet. That turned out to be a really good day for birds, who went on to become the world’s most diverse group of terrestrial vertebrates. In this talk, we will explore some surprising new stories that some incredibly old birds are telling us about why birds alone among known dinosaurs survived that mass extinction event, why the earliest divergence among living birds is marked by a 100-fold difference in species diversity, and how we might predict which species are most likely to be “extinction-proof” in the future.

Chris Torres is an avian paleontologist and evolutionary morphologist. His research focuses on questions about extinction and survivorship dynamics, the evolution of beak function, and the evolution of “loss” (like the loss of flight, the loss of sensory systems, or the loss of niche space). Bird groups he works on include early pre-modern birds, the so-called ratites (and their flying relatives), rails, and flamingos (his favorites). He is an assistant professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of the Pacific.