Colours AND smells 🙃🌳💩

Another years-long project I was a working group co-leader was published today as well!

Me, @lepidodendron.bsky.social and @rachelwarnock.bsky.social co-led the phylogenetics group and I had such a formative experience! ⚒️

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

I’m excited to see how the field grows from here, and how others will build on this work.

📄 The paper was just published #OpenAccess in Paleobiology: dx.doi.org/10.1017/pab.2025.10042

This isn’t a definitive list — it’s a starting point.

A #shared foundation we hope will guide collaborations, #funding, and advocacy, while sparking new #directions for paleontological #research.

dx.doi.org/10.1017/pab.2025.10042

But equally important are the broader needs we highlight:

#Valuing specimen-based research

#Protecting fossil sites & collections

#Strengthening museum infrastructure

#Building a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive community

dx.doi.org/10.1017/pab.2025.10042

On the #science side, we dug into:

Drivers of #biodiversity across deep time

Integrating data across #space + time

Using #fossils to inform today’s climate and conservation debates

Harnessing new tools + #technologies

dx.doi.org/10.1017/pab.2025.10042

Together, we built a list of 89 #priority #questions, organized into 11 themes.

They highlight both #Scientific #Challenges and the #Structural #Issues shaping the future of paleontology.

dx.doi.org/10.1017/pab.2025.10042

Paleontology spans everything from the origins of life billions of years ago to today’s biodiversity crises. The scope is massive, and always evolving.

dx.doi.org/10.1017/pab.2025.10042

So we asked: what should we, as a community, be focusing on next?