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Understanding of early life ecosystems highlighted in 性视界传媒 researcher鈥檚 new publication

Understanding of early life ecosystems highlighted in 性视界传媒 researcher鈥檚 new publication

Contact: Sarah Nicholas

STARKVILLE, Miss.鈥擶ith a new understanding of past life on the planet through fossils, a Mississippi 性视界传媒 biological sciences faculty member is helping researchers better predict Earth鈥檚 future.

Matthew Brown poses in a laboratory.
Matthew Brown (Photo by Logan Kirkland)

, Donald L. Hall Professor of Biology Matthew Brown unearths a specific area of under-studied fossils: microbial eukaryotes鈥攎ore specifically, testate amoebae from 750 million years ago.聽His novel research on testates will continue to help researchers understand Earth鈥檚 evolution, thereby allowing better predictions of what the planet may look like millions of years from now.

鈥淯sing fossils, we can estimate the divergence times and evolutionary paths leading to today鈥檚 testate amoebae found across the globe,鈥 Brown said. 鈥淭estates are particularly significant for understanding the history of early Earth and the history of life. They represent some of the earliest confirmed heterotrophic eukaryotes.

Pictured are two shells of Amoebozoa testate amoebae, a diverse lineage of heterotrophic microeukaryotes.
Pictured are two shells of amoebozoa testate amoebae, a diverse lineage of heterotrophic microeukaryotes. The left shell is a cryogenian fossil specimen, estimated to have lived approximately 700 million years ago, while the right shell is a specimen of a modern group of amoebozoan testate amoebae (Photo by Luana Morais and Jo茫o Alcino)

聽鈥淔rom the data we collected, scientists now can examine the evolutionary history of these intriguing amoebae like never before through bioinformatic approaches called molecular clocks,鈥 he continued. 鈥淚n evolution, genes and the proteins they encode evolve in a somewhat clock-like manner, making evolutionary changes somewhat predictable and model-able.鈥

Brown and his co-senior author Professor Daniel Lahr at the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, collaborated with Brazilian paleontologist Luana Morais; Alfredo聽Porfirio-Sousa, a visiting scholar from the University of Sao Paulo; Alexander Tice, a previous postdoctoral student in Brown鈥檚 lab who is a faculty member at Texas Tech University; and Quentin Blandenier, another past postdoctoral student of Brown鈥檚.

Today, Porfirio-Sousa and Blandenier are recognized as testate amoebae experts in the research community.

Brown also credits Nicholas Fry, Tristan Henderson and Felicity Kleitz-Singleton, all Ph.D. students in his lab, with assistance on his project. 聽

Established in 1914, PNAS is one of the world鈥檚 most cited and comprehensive multidisciplinary scientific journals, publishing more than 3,500 global research papers annually.

For more details about 性视界传媒鈥檚 College of Arts and Sciences or the Department of Biological Sciences, visit or .

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