Alessio Capobianco
@acapomorphic.bsky.social
Vertebrate paleontologist and evolutionary biologist, currently postdoc at LMU Munich. In a love-hate relationship with phylogenies :D
Out now in Biology Letters, my latest paper tackles an apparently simple question: how many characters are needed to reconstruct a phylogeny? TL;DR: in most cases between 100 and 500, more than a substantial portion of morphological datasets, but the story is more complex... doi.org/10.1098/rsbl...
October 15, 2025 at 9:29 AM
Out now in Biology Letters, my latest paper tackles an apparently simple question: how many characters are needed to reconstruct a phylogeny? TL;DR: in most cases between 100 and 500, more than a substantial portion of morphological datasets, but the story is more complex... doi.org/10.1098/rsbl...
Reposted by Alessio Capobianco
Just in time for #FossilFriday 🦖 What are the big questions in #paleontology today?
dx.doi.org/10.1017/pab.2025.10042
Nearly 200 scientists worldwide came together to map where our field is headed. Here’s the story 👇
dx.doi.org/10.1017/pab.2025.10042
Nearly 200 scientists worldwide came together to map where our field is headed. Here’s the story 👇
Identifying the Big Questions in paleontology: a community-driven project | Paleobiology | Cambridge Core
Identifying the Big Questions in paleontology: a community-driven project
dx.doi.org
September 26, 2025 at 1:59 PM
Just in time for #FossilFriday 🦖 What are the big questions in #paleontology today?
dx.doi.org/10.1017/pab.2025.10042
Nearly 200 scientists worldwide came together to map where our field is headed. Here’s the story 👇
dx.doi.org/10.1017/pab.2025.10042
Nearly 200 scientists worldwide came together to map where our field is headed. Here’s the story 👇
Reposted by Alessio Capobianco
What are the biggest questions in #paleontology? New paper out today in Paleobiology led by Smith & Kiessling with ~200 coauthors on the relevance of our field, methods, & museum collections to climate & biodiversity research🦖 #FossilFriday @paleosoc.bsky.social 🔗: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
September 26, 2025 at 11:53 AM
What are the biggest questions in #paleontology? New paper out today in Paleobiology led by Smith & Kiessling with ~200 coauthors on the relevance of our field, methods, & museum collections to climate & biodiversity research🦖 #FossilFriday @paleosoc.bsky.social 🔗: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
Reposted by Alessio Capobianco
Ever wondered how to incorporate fossils as tips in a phylogenetic tree?
Our new paper provides a comprehensive guide!
#EarlyFossilFriday
#FossilFriday
#TipDating
#Phylogeny
#EvolutionaryBiology
Our new paper provides a comprehensive guide!
#EarlyFossilFriday
#FossilFriday
#TipDating
#Phylogeny
#EvolutionaryBiology
I am extremely happy to see that our review on fossil tip-dating is out in early view in Systematic Biology! A huge thanks to all the authors of this massive project (@heckeberg.bsky.social, @basantakhakurel.bsky.social, Gustavo Darlim, and @hoehna.bsky.social)! academic.oup.com/sysbio/advan...
September 25, 2025 at 1:21 PM
Ever wondered how to incorporate fossils as tips in a phylogenetic tree?
Our new paper provides a comprehensive guide!
#EarlyFossilFriday
#FossilFriday
#TipDating
#Phylogeny
#EvolutionaryBiology
Our new paper provides a comprehensive guide!
#EarlyFossilFriday
#FossilFriday
#TipDating
#Phylogeny
#EvolutionaryBiology
I am extremely happy to see that our review on fossil tip-dating is out in early view in Systematic Biology! A huge thanks to all the authors of this massive project (@heckeberg.bsky.social, @basantakhakurel.bsky.social, Gustavo Darlim, and @hoehna.bsky.social)! academic.oup.com/sysbio/advan...
September 25, 2025 at 12:40 PM
I am extremely happy to see that our review on fossil tip-dating is out in early view in Systematic Biology! A huge thanks to all the authors of this massive project (@heckeberg.bsky.social, @basantakhakurel.bsky.social, Gustavo Darlim, and @hoehna.bsky.social)! academic.oup.com/sysbio/advan...
We (me, @barankarapunar.bsky.social, @sinjinis.bsky.social and @harriedrage.bsky.social) organized a symposium for the next IPC (Cape Town 2026!) on evolution, diversity and ecology in marine ecosystems throughout the Phanerozoic.
Contact us if you would like to participate or to know more about it!
Contact us if you would like to participate or to know more about it!
Symposia 🔍
Among our 29 themed symposia + 1 open symposium, we are pleased to feature:
✨ Life in the Phanerozoic Oceans: Evolution, diversity and ecology in deep time marine ecosystems✨
📩 To participate in this symposium or get more information, contact the conveners: 👇
Among our 29 themed symposia + 1 open symposium, we are pleased to feature:
✨ Life in the Phanerozoic Oceans: Evolution, diversity and ecology in deep time marine ecosystems✨
📩 To participate in this symposium or get more information, contact the conveners: 👇
September 19, 2025 at 2:39 PM
We (me, @barankarapunar.bsky.social, @sinjinis.bsky.social and @harriedrage.bsky.social) organized a symposium for the next IPC (Cape Town 2026!) on evolution, diversity and ecology in marine ecosystems throughout the Phanerozoic.
Contact us if you would like to participate or to know more about it!
Contact us if you would like to participate or to know more about it!
Reposted by Alessio Capobianco
No, it is not a dream. This actually happened!!! We had a *fantastic* #CPEGCPB26 meeting and I cannot articulate any other adjective to describe it until I recover from it. Thanks to everyone who attended and everyone who helped making this happen. @kristinakocakova.bsky.social
August 1, 2025 at 8:12 AM
No, it is not a dream. This actually happened!!! We had a *fantastic* #CPEGCPB26 meeting and I cannot articulate any other adjective to describe it until I recover from it. Thanks to everyone who attended and everyone who helped making this happen. @kristinakocakova.bsky.social
Reposted by Alessio Capobianco
The CPEG & CPB meeting is officially underway! 🎉
We kicked things off with two fantastic workshop sessions:
📊 R-based open data science in palaeobiology and ecology
🧠 Deep learning for macroevolutionary analyses
Big thanks to all our speakers and participants - spot yourself below!
#CPEGCPB25
We kicked things off with two fantastic workshop sessions:
📊 R-based open data science in palaeobiology and ecology
🧠 Deep learning for macroevolutionary analyses
Big thanks to all our speakers and participants - spot yourself below!
#CPEGCPB25
July 27, 2025 at 3:09 PM
The CPEG & CPB meeting is officially underway! 🎉
We kicked things off with two fantastic workshop sessions:
📊 R-based open data science in palaeobiology and ecology
🧠 Deep learning for macroevolutionary analyses
Big thanks to all our speakers and participants - spot yourself below!
#CPEGCPB25
We kicked things off with two fantastic workshop sessions:
📊 R-based open data science in palaeobiology and ecology
🧠 Deep learning for macroevolutionary analyses
Big thanks to all our speakers and participants - spot yourself below!
#CPEGCPB25
We now have protein sequences from rhino enamel that are >20 million years old! I am extremely excited and grateful to have been part of this project. The incredible thing: these sequences are informative enough to place this ancient species in the rhino tree! www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Phylogenetically informative proteins from an Early Miocene rhinocerotid - Nature
Protein sequences from fossil tooth enamel of a rhinocerotid from Canada’s High Arctic are used to develop phylogenetic frameworks from a specimen too old to preserve ancient DNA.
www.nature.com
July 10, 2025 at 8:38 PM
We now have protein sequences from rhino enamel that are >20 million years old! I am extremely excited and grateful to have been part of this project. The incredible thing: these sequences are informative enough to place this ancient species in the rhino tree! www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Alessio Capobianco
Moderate extinctions and slow recovery of non-marine teleost fishes across the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary, with a systematic appraisal of early Paleocene teleost fishes from Saskatchewan, Canada, and Montana, USA. Palaeontologia Electronica, 28(2):a28. 🐟🧪
palaeo-electronica.org/content/2025...
palaeo-electronica.org/content/2025...
![Higher-level taxonomic patterns of relative abundances of teleosts through the Hell Creek Formation and lower half of the Tullock Member of the Fort Union Formation, Garfield County, Montana, USA. Data from the Pine Cree Park (PCP) locality of the Ravenscrag Formation, Saskatchewan, Canada was included to fill the temporal gap (Puercan 2 NALMA substage or Pu2) in the Montana record. Percent relative abundances are based on centra per locality (vertical stacked columns; see Table 1 and Brinkman et al. [2021, table 2 and figure 20] for details), with each locality identified at the top of the figure and their total sample size (N) indicated in parentheses. Taxa are listed at the bottom of the figure, with their total sample sizes (N) per geologic unit indicated in parentheses; the first value (to the left of the first forward slash) is the total sample size from the Hell Creek Formation, the middle value is from the Tullock Member, and the last value is from the PCP locality of the Ravenscrag Formation. The colorized box next to each taxon name corresponds to the colorized portions in the vertical stacked columns. See the caption for Figure 22 for an explanation of the chronostratigraphic framework. Figure modified from Brinkman et al. (2021, figure 20). Abbreviations: FH, Fox Hills Formation; K-Pg, Cretaceous-Paleogene; Ma, million years; Mbr./Fm., member or formation; NALMA, North American Land Mammal “age”; Pmag., geomagnetic polarity chron; Pu1, Pu2 (gray because Pu2 fauna has not been found in the local area), Pu3, Puercan 1, 2, 3; Strat. (m), stratigraphic position in meters relative to the K-Pg boundary; To1, Torrejonian 1.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:mlq4aycufcuolr7ax6sezpc4/bafkreibi4o5e5bce35zitdd4yppxmd4qope4rfnzruiixylw4gk2wyzsty@jpeg)
July 8, 2025 at 6:22 PM
Moderate extinctions and slow recovery of non-marine teleost fishes across the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary, with a systematic appraisal of early Paleocene teleost fishes from Saskatchewan, Canada, and Montana, USA. Palaeontologia Electronica, 28(2):a28. 🐟🧪
palaeo-electronica.org/content/2025...
palaeo-electronica.org/content/2025...