Rebecca Cooper
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rebeccasaurus.bsky.social
Rebecca Cooper
@rebeccasaurus.bsky.social
Postdoctoral researcher 🦕
Computational palaeobiology, deep learning and macroevolution 🦣
She/Her
Pinned
Really happy to see chapter 2 of my PhD published today in @methodsinecoevol.bsky.social. DeepDiveR is an R package to assist with deep learning inference of biodiversity change through time 🤿🦊 Thanks to @bethanyjallen.bsky.social & Daniele Silvestro for the collaboration

doi.org/10.1111/2041...
Reposted by Rebecca Cooper
Rare as hen's teeth: an Assistant Curator job, with our fantastic team at National Museums Scotland! Closing date 24th August #museums #museumjobs
careers.nms.ac.uk/job/748553
Assistant Curator (Vertebrates)
careers.nms.ac.uk
August 14, 2025 at 11:14 AM
Reposted by Rebecca Cooper
Check out our perceptive on the Emerging uses of artificial intelligence in deep time biodiversity research www.nature.com/articles/s44...
#AI #paleontology
Emerging uses of artificial intelligence in deep time biodiversity research - Nature Reviews Biodiversity
This Perspective explores the existing and potential applications of artificial intelligence in deep time biodiversity research as well as offer guidelines on equitable and ethical use of artificial i...
www.nature.com
August 11, 2025 at 7:51 AM
Really happy to see chapter 2 of my PhD published today in @methodsinecoevol.bsky.social. DeepDiveR is an R package to assist with deep learning inference of biodiversity change through time 🤿🦊 Thanks to @bethanyjallen.bsky.social & Daniele Silvestro for the collaboration

doi.org/10.1111/2041...
August 8, 2025 at 10:45 AM
Reposted by Rebecca Cooper
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
July 27, 2025 at 3:09 PM
Reposted by Rebecca Cooper
‪[1/n] New paper co-lead by @emmadnn.bsky.social@macroecoevoale.bsky.social‬ and I: we combined fossil occurrences, biogeography and climate modelling to investigate the origins and early evolution of pterosaurs 🔗 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
June 18, 2025 at 9:56 AM
Reposted by Rebecca Cooper
🚨 We are thrilled to announce that the preliminary program for the upcoming CPEG & CPB Conference is officially LIVE! 🎉

Check out the full list of talks, lightning talks, and poster sessions happening in just over a month!

👉 www.cpeg-cpb25.uzh.ch/en/abstract....

#CPEGCPB25
Program & Abstracts
www.cpeg-cpb25.uzh.ch
June 17, 2025 at 3:02 PM
Reposted by Rebecca Cooper
Pleased to say that the final chapter of my PhD is out today in Nature Ecology and Evolution: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
My favourite bit of science that I've done to date. If you enjoy biogeography, weird reptiles, and the TARDIS, then have a read!
Landscape-explicit phylogeography illuminates the ecographic radiation of early archosauromorph reptiles - Nature Ecology & Evolution
Using a newly developed spatiotemporal phylogeographic path analysis method combined with phylogenetic niche modelling, the authors estimate clade-wide dispersal maps spanning the early Permian to end...
www.nature.com
June 11, 2025 at 9:17 AM
Reposted by Rebecca Cooper
Have you developed a computational method or tool which would be useful to palaeobiologists? 🧰 If you might be interested in presenting in our Lecture Series later in the year, please get in touch with us! 🗓️ #FossilFriday
🚨Palaeoverse Lecture Series🚨

It’s time to announce our Summer 2025 talk schedule 👀
Looking forward to hearing from @spissatella.bsky.social, @sauropodlets.bsky.social, @nmkphylo.bsky.social and @russellgarwood.co.uk!

Sign up here: bit.ly/palaeoverse-lecture-series-2025
June 6, 2025 at 1:49 PM
Reposted by Rebecca Cooper
🦏🦣🦌 LARGE paper alert!!! We tracked 60 million years of large herbivore evolution—over 3,000 fossil species—to uncover how ecosystems have changed and reorganized through time. What we found might help us understand the next big tipping point 🧵👇
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Two major ecological shifts shaped 60 million years of ungulate faunal evolution - Nature Communications
Here, the authors analyze a fossil dataset spanning 60 million years to investigate ecological stability. Their network analysis identifies prolonged stability interrupted by two major functional tran...
www.nature.com
June 5, 2025 at 9:10 AM
Reposted by Rebecca Cooper
If you are interested in biodiversity in deep time, check out my new preprint with @rachelwarnock.bsky.social and @dralexdunhill.bsky.social! We review methods of quantifying diversity and diversification, using the fossil record and phylogenies with extinct tips 🐚🦕📊
doi.org/10.32942/X2D...
“A history of the world imperfectly kept”: Will we ever know how biodiversity has changed over deep time?
doi.org
May 6, 2025 at 1:51 PM
Reposted by Rebecca Cooper
When @mauritiantales.bsky.social and I began leading this study, we never thought it would get 10 citations let alone the 200 it reached his week!

But what started almost 5 years ago as a lockdown data project has taken us on an unimaginable rollercoaster... (1/n)

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Colonial history and global economics distort our understanding of deep-time biodiversity - Nature Ecology & Evolution
Analysing the global distribution, source and authorship of fossil research over the past 30 years, the authors find that researchers in high- or upper-middle-income countries hold a monopoly over pal...
www.nature.com
April 7, 2025 at 9:37 AM
Reposted by Rebecca Cooper
🚨 I'm super happy to announce that our new paper is finally out today in @currentbiology.bsky.social! 🚨

We used the ecological approach of occupancy modelling to investigate the structure of the dinosaur fossil record prior to the K/Pg mass extinction!

www.cell.com/current-biol...
The structure of the end-Cretaceous dinosaur fossil record in North America
Dean et al. examine the fossil record of North American dinosaurs prior to the end-Cretaceous mass extinction. Estimates of detection probability from occupancy models decrease prior to the extinction...
www.cell.com
April 8, 2025 at 3:34 PM
Reposted by Rebecca Cooper
I am deeply saddened to have learned of the death, on Feb 5, 2025, of Elisabeth Vrba—a fantastically creative scientist and a warm, wonderful human being. She leaves us a legacy of original macroevolutionary thinking that is still fresh and illuminating.
February 10, 2025 at 6:46 PM
CPEG and CPB are coming up next year in Zurich, should be a great opportunity to hear cool science from palaeontologists and ecologists

Might be biased, but the workshops sound pretty cool too 🦕✨
🚨 REMINDER 🚨

Abstract submission for the CPEG Meeting & Conservation Paleobiology Symposium closes soon!

🗓️ Abstract deadline: Feb 1st, 2025
🕒 Early bird pricing ends: April 1st, 2025

Details on keynote speakers, deadlines, fees, workshops & more below!
👉 cpeg-cpb25.uzh.ch/en.html

# CPEGCPB25
| Crossing the Paleontological-Ecological Gap & Conservation Paleobiology Symposium | Zurich, 2025 | UZH
cpeg-cpb25.uzh.ch
January 25, 2025 at 12:26 PM