Sarah Nicole Davis

University of Texas at Austin | UT · Department of Geological Sciences

Carotenoids are pigments responsible for most bright yellow, red, and orange hues in birds. Their distribution has been investigated in avian plumage, but the evolution of their expression in skin and other integumentary structures has not been approached in detail. Here, we investigate the expression of carotenoid‐consistent coloration across tiss...

The end Cretaceous mass extinction was marked by a dramatic change in biodiversity, and the extinction of all non-avian dinosaurs. To understand the diversity of dinosaur clades prior to this event, as well as recovery by avian dinosaurs (birds), we need a better understanding of the global fossil record. However, the fossil record from southern lo...

Egg size and structure reflect important constraints on the reproductive and life-history characteristics of vertebrates. More than two-thirds of all extant amniotes lay eggs. During the Mesozoic era (around 250 million to 65 million years ago), body sizes reached extremes; nevertheless, the largest known egg belongs to the only recently extinct el...

The middle-late Eocene of Antarctica was characterized by dramatic change as the continent became isolated from the other southern landmasses and the Antarctic Circumpolar Current formed. These events were crucial to the formation of the permanent Antarctic ice cap, affecting both regional and global climate change. Our best insight into how life i...

The Magallanes-Austral foreland basin records orogenesis and landscape evolution in the Patagonian Andes of Chile and Argentina. Throughout the retroarc foreland basin, a regional disconformity separates Upper Cretaceous-lower Paleocene strata from overlying diachronous Eocene-Miocene deposits. We present new data from a fossiliferous mixed marine/...

Carotenoids are among the most ubiquitous pigments that produce bright colors in animals, and create most of the vibrant yellows, oranges, and reds in living birds. While they are comparatively well characterized in the plumage of many species, these pigments are also common in avian bare parts (e.g. skin, beak) but their phylogenetic distribution...

The Magallanes-Austral foreland basin preserves an important record of orogenesis and landscape evolution in the Patagonian Andes of Chile and Argentina. Throughout the retroarc foreland basin, a regional disconformity with little to no angular discordance separates Upper Cretaceous–lower Paleocene strata from overlying deposits of diachronous Eoce...

The evolutionarily persistent and widespread use of carotenoid pigments in animal coloration contrasts with their biochemical instability. Consequently, evolution of carotenoid-based displays should include mechanisms to accommodate or limit pigment degradation. In birds, this could involve two strategies: (i) evolution of a moult immediately prior...

http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/283/1831/20160403