Publications in VIVO

Co-author Network

Simpson, Carl

Associate Professor

Positions

Associate Professor, University of Colorado Museum of Natural History
Associate Professor, Geological Sciences

Research Areas

Research

research overview

I'm Carl Simpson, a paleobiologist at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History. I work on the evolution and macroevolution of group living from colonial marine invertebrates, especially bryozoans and corals to multicellularity.

Publications

selected publications

chapter
- Species selection in the molecular age. 116-134. 2012
- How Many Levels Are There? How Insights from Evolutionary Transitions in Individuality Help Measure the Hierarchical Complexity of Life. 199-226. 2011
- The Miscellaneous Transitions in Evolution. 19-34. 2011
conference proceeding
- MEASURING SPECIES SELECTION IN THE MOLECULAR PHYLOGENETIC RECORD. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 173-173. 2012
journal article
- Multicellularity for free.. Nature Ecology and Evolution. 846-847. 2026
- Record of Foraminifera test composition throughout the Phanerozoic. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Biological Sciences. 2025
- Global natural history infrastructure requires international solidarity, support, and investment in local capacity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 2025
- Levels of selection and macroevolution in organisms, colonies, and species. Paleobiology. 62-70. 2025
- Origin of division of labor is decoupled from polymorphism in colonial animals. PNAS Nexus. 2024
- Origin of division of labor is decoupled from polymorphism in colonial animals 2024
- Physical constraints during Snowball Earth drive the evolution of multicellularity. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Biological Sciences. 2024
- Early proliferation of avicularia in the Cretaceous cheilostome bryozoan Wilbertopora: a diversification event guided by ecological exploration. 87-94. 2023
- LEVELS OF ORGANIZATION IN THE BIOLOGICAL. Quarterly Review of Biology. 88-88. 2023
- THE EVOLUTION OF MULTICELLULARITY. Trends in Ecology and Evolution. 385-386. 2023
- Tonian Low-Latitude Marine Ecosystems Were Cold Before Snowball Earth. Geophysical Research Letters. 2023
- Aggregate Trait Evolvability and Macroevolution in Two Sister Species of the Bryozoan Stylopoma. Evolutionary Biology. 78-89. 2023
- When did mammoths go extinct?. Nature. E1-E3. 2022
- Bryozoan revelations. Science Advances. 2022
- Aggregate trait evolvability and macroevolution in two sister species of the bryozoan; Stylopoma 2021
- Adaptation to a Viscous Snowball Earth Ocean as a Path to Complex Multicellularity. The American Naturalist. 590-609. 2021
- Reproductive innovations and pulsed rise in plant complexity. Science. 1368-+. 2021
- An ecological driver for the macroevolution of morphological polymorphism within colonial invertebrates. Journal of Experimental Zoology Part B: Molecular and Developmental Evolution. 231-238. 2021
- Coloniality, clonality, and modularity in animals: The elephant in the room. Journal of Experimental Zoology Part B: Molecular and Developmental Evolution. 198-211. 2021
- From the individual to the colony: Marine invertebrates as models to understand levels of biological organization. Journal of Experimental Zoology Part B: Molecular and Developmental Evolution. 191-197. 2021
- How colonial animals evolve. Science Advances. 2020
- The inseparability of sampling and time and its influence on attempts to unify the molecular and fossil records. Paleobiology. 561-574. 2018
- Evolution: Serving Up Light. Current Biology. R873-R875. 2018
- The measurement of species selection on evolving characters 2017
- Evolutionary Determinants of Morphological Polymorphism in Colonial Animals. The American Naturalist. 17-28. 2017
- Understanding macroevolution through the origin of higher taxa. Ecology. 3246-3248. 2016
- The case for species selection 2016
- Marine extinction risk shaped by trait-environment interactions over 500 million years. Global Change Biology. 3595-3607. 2015
- Reconstructing the Dust Cycle in Deep Time: the Case of the Late Paleozoic Icehouse. 83-120. 2015
- Paleontological baselines for evaluating extinction risk in the modern oceans. Science. 567-570. 2015
- Homology, Genes, and Evolutionary Innovation. Science. 1234-1235. 2014
- Differential niche dynamics among major marine invertebrate clades. Ecology Letters. 314-323. 2014
- A Simple Method for Estimating Informative Node Age Priors for the Fossil Calibration of Molecular Divergence Time Analyses. PLoS ONE. 2013
- SPECIES SELECTION AND THE MACROEVOLUTION OF CORAL COLONIALITY AND PHOTOSYMBIOSIS. Evolution. 1607-1621. 2013
- Equatorial decline of reef corals during the last Pleistocene interglacial. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 21378-21383. 2012
- Long-term differences in extinction risk among the seven forms of rarity. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Biological Sciences. 4969-4976. 2012
- Extinctions in ancient and modern seas. Trends in Ecology and Evolution. 608-617. 2012
- The evolutionary history of division of labour. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Biological Sciences. 116-121. 2012
- Multimodal observational assessment of quality and productivity benefits from the implementation of wireless technology for out of hours working. BMJ Open. 2012
- EVOLUTIONARY DIVERSIFICATION OF REEF CORALS: A COMPARISON OF THE MOLECULAR AND FOSSIL RECORDS. Evolution. 3274-3284. 2011
- 1001 PEDIATRIC TREATMENT ACTIVITIES: CREATIVE IDEAS FOR THERAPY SESSIONS. British Journal of Occupational Therapy. 434-434. 2011
- PIONEERING PARADIGMS AND MAGNIFICENT MANIFESTOS-LEIGH VAN VALEN'S PRICELESS CONTRIBUTIONS TO EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY. Evolution. 917-922. 2011
- On the potential for ocean acidification to be a general cause of ancient reef crises. Global Change Biology. 56-67. 2011
- Diversity of Life through Time 2010
- Species selection and driven mechanisms jointly generate a large-scale morphological trend in monobathrid crinoids. Paleobiology. 481-496. 2010
- The role of extinction in large-scale diversity-stability relationships. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Biological Sciences. 1451-1456. 2010
- Reefs as Cradles of Evolution and Sources of Biodiversity in the Phanerozoic. Science. 196-198. 2010
- Assessing the role of abundance in marine bivalve extinction over the post-Paleozoic. Paleobiology. 631-647. 2009
- Phanerozoic trends in the global diversity of marine invertebrates. Science. 97-100. 2008
- How similar are branching networks in nature? A view from the ocean: Caribbean gorgonian corals. Journal of Theoretical Biology. 135-138. 2003

Background

education and training

Ph.D., University of Chicago 2006
B.A., University of California-Santa Barbara 2000

awards and honors

Science and Engineering Grant, conferred by W.M. Keck Foundation, 2025

International Activities

geographic focus

http://dbpedia.org/page/Hong_Kong Geographic Region
Asia Continent
Australia Country
Australia and New Zealand Continent
Brazil Country
Europe Continent
France Country
Germany Country
Mongolia Country
Norway Country
Panama Country
Switzerland Country
United Kingdom Country
central America Transnational Region

Other Profiles

ORCID iD

http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0719-4437

Google Scholar

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=zS8EXIQAAAAJ&hl=en