About

Matthew E. Clapham is a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, specializing in paleobiology with a focus on mass extinctions, the role of physiological and ecological traits during ancient rapid climate change, long-term macroecological shifts, and fossil cephalopods. His research investigates the ecological and evolutionary consequences of environmental change on Cretaceous and Cenozoic decapod and ostracod crustaceans, as well as the responses of coralline algae to environmental change over the Cenozoic. He is actively involved in mentoring graduate and undergraduate students, guiding research on topics such as bivalve sclerochronology, brachiopod community paleoecology, and the causes of decline in nautilids during the Cenozoic. Clapham also emphasizes education, mentoring, diversity, inclusion, outreach, and science communication in his work.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Biology
• Ecology
• Database
• Paleontology
• Geography
• Data science
• Geology

Selected publications

• Paleobiology Database User Guide Version 1.0

  PaleoBios · 2023 · 54 citations

  • Computer Science
  • Computer Science
  • Data science

  The Paleobiology Database is an online, non-governmental, non-profit public resource for paleontological data. It is organized and operated by a multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional, international group of paleobiological researchers. This volume is designed to be a comprehensive guide for Paleobiology Database users, both General and Contributory. It covers most database uses from data retrieval and mapping to data contribution of all types. It contains numerous examples to illustrate database use as well as definitions of terms and additional links to numerous other sources. We hope that this user guide will help all users access the great volume of data in the Paleobiology Database and lead others to start and continue to add data to the system.

  DOI

• The spatial structure of Phanerozoic marine animal diversity

  Science · 2020 · 167 citations

  • Computer Science
  • Ecology
  • Paleontology

  The global fossil record of marine animals has fueled long-standing debates about diversity change through time and the drivers of this change. However, the fossil record is not truly global. It varies considerably in geographic scope and in the sampling of environments among intervals of geological time. We account for this variability using a spatially explicit approach to quantify regional-scale diversity through the Phanerozoic. Among-region variation in diversity is comparable to variation through time, and much of this is explained by environmental factors, particularly the extent of reefs. By contrast, influential hypotheses of diversity change through time, including sustained long-term increases, have little explanatory power. Modeling the spatial structure of the fossil record transforms interpretations of Phanerozoic diversity patterns and their macroevolutionary explanations. This necessitates a refocus of deep-time diversification studies.

  DOI

Recent grants

• Collaborative Research: New Chemo- and Biostratigraphic Framework for the Lower Triassic of the Western U.S.: Towards a high-resolution understanding of Early Triassic events

  NSF · $11k · 2009–2012

• Testing for Climate-Induced Marine Community Change and Ecological Disruption at Mid-Latitudes during the Late Paleozoic Ice Age

  NSF · $130k · 2009–2013

Frequent coauthors

• David J. Bottjer

  141 shared

• Martin Aberhan

  Museum für Naturkunde

  128 shared

• Adam Tomášových

  Earth Science Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences

  128 shared

• Shanan E. Peters

  University of Wisconsin–Madison

  128 shared

• Mark E. Patzkowsky

  Pennsylvania State University

  128 shared

• Michael Foote

  University of Chicago

  128 shared

• Wolfgang Kiessling

  128 shared

• Nicole Bonuso

  California State University, Fullerton

  81 shared

Labs

• Matthew E Clapham LabPI

Education

• Ph.D., Earth Sciences

  University of Southern California

  2006

• M.Sc., Geology and Geophysics

  Queen's University

  2002

• B.Sc., Earth and Ocean Sciences

  University of British Columbia

  2000

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