Daniel Field

Vertebrate palaeontologist and evolutionary biologist investigating macroevolutionary transitions and the origins of major vertebrate groups, with a focus on birds. 

 

Research Area

Work in my lab aims to decipher the origins of modern avian biodiversity using fossil, anatomical, and molecular data, although we have deep interests in evolutionary questions across the vertebrate tree of life. Major themes of our research include clarifying how birds survived and diversified following the mass extinction of non-avian dinosaurs, studying the evolutionary histories of major bird groups, and understanding the evolutionary origins of distinctive biological features such as the modern bird skull. I am a member of both the Department of Earth Sciences and the Department of Zoology at Cambridge and oversee the University of Cambridge Museum of Zoology’s extensive ornithology collections. I also oversee the Cambridge Biotomography Centre, a high-resolution microCT scanning facility based in the Museum of Zoology. Work in my lab often applies techniques like digital morphology, geometric morphometrics, phylogenetics, divergence time analysis, functional morphology, comparative anatomy, comparative phylogenetic methods, and embryology. Learn more about our lab here: https://www.fieldpalaeo.com

 

Project Interests

I would be happy to develop projects focusing on the origin and evolution of birds, and potentially other vertebrate groups. Projects can directly incorporate examination of fossils and/or modern vertebrate anatomy, or can be predominantly analytical (e.g., phylogenetics, divergence times, biomechanics, etc.). I am also interested in projects that incorporate perspectives from both evolutionary and developmental biology. Much of the work in our lab applies high-resolution three-dimensional imaging of morphology. To learn more about our research, see recent publications here: https://www.fieldpalaeo.com/publications