Michael FooteLouis Block Distinguished Service Professor

Research Focus:

Paleontology

Email:

mfoote@uchicago.edu

Phone:

(773) 702-4320

Office:

Hinds 201

Research Interests

I am a paleobiologist interested in documenting and interpreting large-scale patterns in the history of life.

Current research focuses on diversity dynamics. How do rates of speciation and extinction contribute to rates of net diversification? How does standing diversity in turn affect speciation and extinction rates (diversity dependence)? Why do rates of speciation and extinction vary among different environmental settings?

I have also worked in other areas, principally morphological diversification and mathematical modeling of evolution. I maintain an active interest in these fields and am happy to advise students in these and other areas.

Selected Publications

• Foote, M. 2023. Diversity-dependent diversification in the history of marine animals. American Naturalist 201:680–693. link

• Crampton, J. S., Cooper, R. A., Foote, M., & Sadler, P. M. (2020). Ephemeral species in the fossil record? Synchronous coupling of macroevolutionary dynamics in mid-Paleozoic zooplankton. Paleobiology, 46(1), 123-135. link

• Foote, M., Sadler, P. M., Cooper, R. A., & Crampton, J. S. (2019). Completeness of the known graptoloid palaeontological record. Journal of the Geological Society, 176(6), 1038-1055. link

• Foote, M., R. A. Cooper, J. S. Crampton, and P. M. Sadler. 2018. Diversity-dependent evolutionary rates in early Palaeozoic zooplankton. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 285:20180122. link

• Crampton, J. S., S. R. Meyers, R. A. Cooper, P. M. Sadler, M. Foote, and D. Harte. 2018. Pacing of Paleozoic macroevolutionary rates by Milankovitch grand cycles. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 115:5686-5691. link