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Lauren Wilson

@lnwilson.bsky.social

480 followers 240 following 50 posts

PhD student @griffinlabpaleo.bsky.social/@Princeton | studying Cretaceous Arctic birds ❄️🐣 | MS from @uafairbanks | she/her Banner art: Gabriel Ugueto https://lw0428.wixsite.com/lauren-wilson

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Lauren Wilson @lnwilson.bsky.social · May 29

Millions of birds nest in the Arctic each year. But did you know they’ve been doing this since the Cretaceous? Can’t believe I finally get to share that our paper on the birds of the Prince Creek Formation is out in ‪@science.org (and on the cover)! 🧵

Art: Gabriel Ugueto ‪@serpenillus.bsky.social

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Reposted by Lauren Wilson

Ksepka Lab @ksepkalab.bsky.social · 14h

Proud to share a new piece in Scientific American co-authored with the brilliant @lnwilson.bsky.social , edited by @katewong.bsky.social, and featuring this spectacular depiction of the endless daylight of the Cretaceous summer in Alaska by Chase Stone!

www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-...

Bird Migration Is One of Nature’s Greatest Spectacles. Paleontologists Just Found Clues to Its Origin

Tiny fossils hint at when birds began making their mind-blowing journey to the Arctic to breed

www.scientificamerican.com

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Reposted by Lauren Wilson

Kyle Horton @kyle-horton.bsky.social · 14d

Truly impressive number of birds migrating tonight. More than 800 MILLION birds up in the air right now❗ #BirdMigration

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Reposted by Lauren Wilson

Rebecca Gelernter @nearbirdstudios.bsky.social · 22d

I got to paint some paleobirds! (The headline art is by the incredible Chase Stone) 🪶🧪

Bird Migration Is One of Nature’s Greatest Spectacles. Paleontologists Just Found Clues to Its Origin

Tiny fossils hint at when birds began making their mind-blowing journey to the Arctic to breed

www.scientificamerican.com

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Reposted by Lauren Wilson

Scientific American @sciam.bsky.social · 21d

Tiny fossils hint at when birds began making their mind-blowing journey to the Arctic to breed

Bird Migration Is One of Nature’s Greatest Spectacles. Paleontologists Just Found Clues to Its Origin

Tiny fossils hint at when birds began making their mind-blowing journey to the Arctic to breed

www.scientificamerican.com

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Lauren Wilson @lnwilson.bsky.social · 21d

Thank you to editor @katewong.bsky.social for making this possible! I also cannot thank Chase Stone and @nearbirdstudios.bsky.social enough for their incredible artwork that brings these birds to life!

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Lauren Wilson @lnwilson.bsky.social · 21d

Right now, millions of birds are migrating south before the onset of the boreal winter. @ksepkalab.bsky.social and I explore the evolutionary origins of this amazing behavior in our article for @sciam.bsky.social!

www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-...

Bird Migration Is One of Nature’s Greatest Spectacles. Paleontologists Just Found Clues to Its Origin

Tiny fossils hint at when birds began making their mind-blowing journey to the Arctic to breed

www.scientificamerican.com

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Lauren Wilson @lnwilson.bsky.social · Jul 5

Made another new friend today 🔍

Lauren Wilson @lnwilson.bsky.social · Jul 5

Cool! Maybe we’ll bump into you in Jordan!

Lauren Wilson @lnwilson.bsky.social · Jul 5

Back in Montana working in the Fort Union Formation for the next couple weeks! It’s my first time leading my own fieldwork and we’re already off to a great start!

#FossilFriday

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Lauren Wilson @lnwilson.bsky.social · Jul 4

All around an amazing and important study from some awesome people! Be sure to check it out!

Lauren Wilson @lnwilson.bsky.social · Jul 4

They show how to mitigate challenges (uncertain phylogenetic relationships, branch lengths, model choice) through real case studies – from predicting bush-cricket calling frequencies to the neuron density of T. rex brains. They also offer a guide and resources for making phylogenetic predictions.

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Lauren Wilson @lnwilson.bsky.social · Jul 4

Phylogenetic predictions are also less precise for species on longer branches. The more time a species has had to evolve from a common ancestor, the more uncertain we are about its unknown traits. Phylogenetically informed predictions are, therefore, more honest reflections of uncertainty.

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Lauren Wilson @lnwilson.bsky.social · Jul 4

Through simulations on multiple tree types and sizes, they show that phylogenetically informed predictions are more accurate than calculations from OLS and PGLS regression formulae. In the figure, you can see that the range in error (actual - predicted) is narrower for phylogenetic predictions.

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Lauren Wilson @lnwilson.bsky.social · Jul 4

Methods to predict traits while accounting for phylogenetic relationships were established 25 years ago. However, many studies still calculate unknown traits from preexisting regression formulae without accounting for phylogeny during prediction.
www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

Using the Past to Predict the Present: Confidence Intervals for Regression Equations in Phylogenetic Comparative Methods | The American Naturalist: Vol 155, No 3

abstract: Two phylogenetic comparative methods, independent contrasts and generalized least squares models, can be used to determine the statistical relationship between two or more traits. We show th...

www.journals.uchicago.edu

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Lauren Wilson @lnwilson.bsky.social · Jul 4

Predicting traits like body size is often done by calculating them from regression formulae, based on some proxy. However, this fails to account for shared ancestry among species. Both ordinary (OLS) and phylogenetic (PGLS) regression formulae ignore relatedness during the prediction process.

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Lauren Wilson @lnwilson.bsky.social · Jul 4

Need to predict an unknown trait, like body size, for extinct species? Use phylogenies! A new paper by colleagues from the ‪@uniofreading.bsky.social‬ and Montana State demonstrates that phylogenetic prediction is more accurate than regression formulae.
doi.org/10.1038/s414...

Phylogenetically informed predictions outperform predictive equations in real and simulated data - Nature Communications

Phylogenetically informed predictions account for phylogenetic relationships among species while predicting unknown trait values. Here, the authors critically compare this approach with equations deri...

doi.org

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Lauren Wilson @lnwilson.bsky.social · Jun 3

Thank you!! ❄️🐣

Reposted by Lauren Wilson

Museum of the Rockies @museumoftherockies.bsky.social · May 30

MSU alumna Lauren Wilson leads a study uncovering evidence that birds nested in the Cretaceous Arctic alongside non-avian dinosaurs! 🦖🐦Several MSU alumni were involved in this research project, including MOR Research Associate Dr. Chris Organ. Read more: www.montana.edu/news/24599/r...

Research by Montana State alumna reveals birds nested in the Cretaceous Arctic alongside non-avian dinosaurs

The evidence, published this week in the journal Science, was found in 73-million-year-old fossils discovered on Alaska’s North Slope.

www.montana.edu

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Lauren Wilson @lnwilson.bsky.social · May 31

Thank you! 🫡

Lauren Wilson @lnwilson.bsky.social · May 31

Thank you so much!! ❄️🐣

Lauren Wilson @lnwilson.bsky.social · May 30

Thank you to the whole Tyrrell gang for inviting me up to give this talk!

And if you haven’t yet, make sure to take a look at the study, out now in Science: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Arctic bird nesting traces back to the Cretaceous

Polar ecosystems are structured and enriched by birds, which nest there seasonally and serve as keystone ecosystem members. Despite the ecological importance of polar birds, the origins of high-latitu...

www.science.org

Lauren Wilson @lnwilson.bsky.social · May 30

Can’t get enough Cretaceous Arctic baby birds? ❄️🐣 Me neither!

Check out the talk I gave at the Royal Tyrrell Museum! I not only get into what types of birds were living in northern Alaska 73 million years ago, but also the crazy Arctic fieldwork we do to actually find the fossils!

#FossilFriday

Cretaceous Arctic Birds from the Prince Creek Formation of Northern Alaska

YouTube video by Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology

youtu.be

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Reposted by Lauren Wilson

New Scientist @newscientist.com · May 30

Tiny bone fragments from Alaska are revealing how and when birds first reached the highest latitudes on Earth.

First evidence of ancient birds nesting above the Arctic circle

Tiny bone fragments from Alaska suggest birds started breeding and nesting in the Arctic 30 million years earlier than previously thought

www.newscientist.com

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Lauren Wilson @lnwilson.bsky.social · May 29

I’ll take one too!

Lauren Wilson @lnwilson.bsky.social · May 29

Thanks Ash! ❄️🐣