Matt Phillips
Research Interests
Most of my research has been concerned with reconstructing the evolutionary history of mammals. I am currently pursuing the following studies:
Marsupial phylogeny: Inferring the phylogenetic interrelations of marsupials, using DNA sequences.
Evolutionary ecology: Exploring the influence of historical constraints and competition in determining the ecological niche partitioning among marsupials.
Monotreme evolution: What are the phylogenetic affinities of these egg-laying mammals to extinct mammal groups and are their characteristics definitively mammalian, “primitive reptilian retentions” or more recent adaptations associated with their peculiar ecological habits?
Faunal turnover in the Late Cretaceous: The role of extraterrestrial impact and competition with birds (and mammals) in the extinction of dinosaurs and other land vertebrates during the Late Cretaceous.
A few selected references
(For a full list of publications, see Matt’s Bozo page here )
- Penny, D. & Phillips, M. J. (2007) Mass survivals. Nature 446, 501-502. PDF
- Phillips, M. J., McLenachan, P. A., Down, C., Gibb, G. C. & Penny, D. (2006) Combined mitochondrial and nuclear DNA sequences resolve the interrelations of the major Australasian marsupial radiations. Systematic Biology 55, 122-137. PDF
- Barnett, R., Barnes, I., Phillips, M. J., Martin, L. D., Harrington, C. R., Leonard, J. A. & Cooper, A. (2005) Evolution of the extinct sabretooths and the American cheetah-like cat. Current Biology 15, R589-R590. PDF
- Phillips M. J., Delsuc, F. D., and Penny, D. (2004) Genome-scale phylogeny and the detection of systematic biases. Molecular Biology and Evolution 21, 1455-1458. PDF
- Phillips, M. J. & Penny, D. (2003). The root of the mammalian tree inferred from whole mitochondrial genomes. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 28, 171-185. PDF
- Poole, A. M., Phillips, M. J. & Penny, D. (2003) Prokaryote and eukaryote evolvability. BioSystems 69, 163-185. PDF