Jacqueline Lungmus

Biotic Earth history, macroevolution, paleobiology, morphometrics

Mammals are only the living representatives of an incredibly diverse group known as Synapsida whose history goes back over 310 million years. Given the depth of this evolutionary history, it is difficult to truly appreciate the uniqueness of mammals without understanding the full context that gave way to the group. For example, living mammals have evolved to fill every conceivable ecological niche on the planet – mammals can swim, fly, run, burrow, and everything in between. My research helps to pinpoint when this astounding breadth of form and functional originated and contextualizes this group among a larger mosaic of tetrapod evolutionary history. My work has shown that the origins of synapsid diversity lies extremely far back in time, likely in the group’s earliest radiations during the Permian and Carboniferous periods of the Phanerozoic. Through a combination of linear and multivariate geometric morphometric analyses on the appendicular skeleton, primarily on the limbs and girdles, I work to critically test the geologic and phylogenetic timing of the massive diversity that many tetrapod groups, both living and extinct, are known for.

Lungmus, Jacqueline K., and Kenneth D. Angielczyk. "Phylogeny, function and ecology in the deep evolutionary history of the mammalian forelimb." Proceedings of the Royal Society B 288.1949 (2021): 20210494.

Lungmus, Jacqueline K., and Kenneth D. Angielczyk. "Antiquity of forelimb ecomorphological diversity in the mammalian stem lineage (Synapsida)." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116.14 (2019): 6903-6907.

Jones, Katrina E., Kenneth D. Angielczyk, P. David Polly, Jason J. Head, Vincent Fernandez, Jacqueline K. Lungmus, Sarah Tulga, and Stephanie E. Pierce. "Fossils reveal the complex evolutionary history of the mammalian regionalized spine." Science 361, no. 6408 (2018): 1249-1252.

Kulik, Zoe T., Jacqueline K. Lungmus, Kenneth D. Angielczyk, and Christian A. Sidor. "Living fast in the Triassic: New data on life history in Lystrosaurus (Therapsida: Dicynodontia) from northeastern Pangea." PloS one 16, no. 11 (2021): e0259369.

Kammerer, Christian F., Michol Deutsch, Jacqueline K. Lungmus, and Kenneth D. Angielczyk. "Effects of taphonomic deformation on geometric morphometric analysis of fossils: a study using the dicynodont Diictodon feliceps (Therapsida, Anomodontia)." PeerJ 8 (2020): e9925.