Mohamad Bazzi

PhD student at Department of Organismal Biology, Evolution och utvecklingsbiologi

Visiting address:
Evolutionsbiologiskt Centrum EBC Norbyv. 18A
Postal address:
Norbyv. 18A
752 36 UPPSALA

Short presentation

The focus of my research is to understand the evolutionary assembly of modern marine biodiversity. In particular, I'm interested in reconstructing dynamics within the context of biotic and climatic-environmental perturbations, using sharks as a model-system. By combining datasets of living and extinct sharks, I aim to explore the role of intrinsic-extrinsic factors, as drivers of shark evolution. Such framework is anticipated to shed light on broader questions relating to biodiversity.

Keywords: biodiversity paleobiology geometric morphometrics sharks macroevolution

My courses


My main scientific interests relate to biodiversity and trophic ecology of cartilaginous fishes. Collectively, these fishes make up a substantial portion of marine vertebrate richness and exhibit 'truly' a bewildering amount of adaptations and biodiversity. As a palaeontologist I’m interested in broader macroevolutionary questions pertaining to the origin and evolution of such phenotypic diversity. The central goal of my research involves answering specific questions about the role of past mass extinctions and environmental fluxes in producing and shaping the observed modern patterns of morphological richness in sharks. To do this I take advantage of recent advances in statistical shape theory and computational approaches that combined enable a comprehensive strategy in which to quantitatively study evolution of select organisms.

So far my research has focused on reconstructing extinction dynamics in sharks across the famous mass extinction that killed the dinosaurs (66 million years ago). The goal is by the end of my PhD to shed new insight onto the dental-morphological evolution of major living shark clades.

