C. Kevin Boyce Assistant Professor, Department of the Geophysical Sciences and the College Department of the Geophysical Sciences 5734 S. Ellis Ave. HGS 267 Chicago, IL 60637 USA Phone: 773-834-7640 E-mail: ckboyce@uchicago.edu Publications

I am interested in the evolution of plant structure, development, and physiology during the Paleozoic colonization of land and subsequent radiations of land plant form with particular emphasis upon the evolution of novel organ and cell types. My work is built upon a few marvelous advantages of plants for paleontological study. Because they have cell walls, complete anatomical preservation is often available in plant fossils and can include organic cellular remnants, allowing detailed chemical analysis of fossils. Also, the similar functional requirements shared by nearly all plants have resulted in multiple independent derivations of most aspects of plant morphology, so that several independent evolutions of structures such as roots, leaves, and wood are available for comparative study.

The first of two main approaches that I use in my research is comparative, cell- and tissue-specific analysis of elemental, isotopic, and organic chemistry in living plants and anatomically preserved fossils. This has required the adaptation of existing chemical techniques, such as the electron microprobe, isotope ratio mass spectrometry, and X-ray spectromicroscopy, to the study of fossils and has required taphonomic studies of how the chemistry of fossils changes during diagenesis. A primary application of this approach has been to the evolution of vascular cells in the extremely simple plants of the Silurian and Devonian and how physiologically important details of cell wall chemistry were modified during the later proliferation of vascular cell types and rise in land plant complexity. Chemical analyses are also being used to interpret enigmatic fossils of controversial biological affinity.

A second approach involves developmental and physiological study of living plants in conjunction with detailed surveys of morphological evolution in the fossil record. The primary subject of this approach has been the independent evolution of laminate leaves in at least four different lineages during the Paleozoic as well as the post-Paleozoic patterns of drastic rearrangement of how leaves are constructed. The question driving much of this work is to what extent the frequent, extreme convergence of morphology seen in the fossil record also has required evolutionary convergence of development and physiology.

Education:

• Harvard University, Ph.D., 2001
• California Institute of Technology, B.S., 1995