Emily Mitchell

Emily Mitchell

@egmitchell.bsky.social

Palaeo and Marine Ecologist, Palaeontologist. Assoc. Prof @camzoology.bsky.social & @zoologymuseum.bsky.social at @cam.ac.uk PI @deeptimeecology.bsky.social She/Her

2.5K followers2.8K following78 posts

Emily Mitchell reposted

Deep Time Ecology group
@deeptimeecology.bsky.social

#FossilFriday The first #Ediacaran genus described was #Aspidella in 1872. Enjoy the original illustration of Aspidella terranovica and some photos of Aspidella in Newfoundland from the DTE’s labs fieldwork this summer!

Emily Mitchell reposted

Science Magazine
@science.org

Researchers in #ScienceAdvances have demonstrated that brief physical contact between healthy and bleached coral can restore algae to the bleached coral, leading to their full recovery. https://scim.ag/4ilLAZq

scim.agRapid coral bleaching recovery via symbiont transfer from healthy coralsCoral bleaching, the temperature-induced loss of dinoflagellate symbionts, is a major driver of global coral reef decline. Although corals can regain symbionts through repopulation of residual symbion...

Emily Mitchell reposted

Carl Zimmer
@carlzimmer.com

Four days ago, a scientist was surprised by the news that Anthropic discovered new virus genes for making DNA. He says he’s been studying them for years—and feeding his data to Anthropic’s AI as part of his own research. Coincidence? Here’s my story. nyti.ms/3VSWayc

nyti.msDid Anthropic’s A.I. Really Make a Scientific Discovery on Its Own? (Gift Article)An expert at the University of Copenhagen said his team had been sharing its research with the company’s A.I. model, Claude, and that its new finding matched their work.

Emily Mitchell reposted

The Palaeontographical Society
@palaeontosoc.bsky.social

Happy #MonographMonday! This plate depicts a fossil colony of Thecosmilia annularis. The detail is absolutely stunning! A Monograph of the British Fossil Corals. Second Part. Corals from the Oolitic Formations by Milne Edwards and Haime (Volume 5, Issue 12, 1851).

Emily Mitchell reposted

franz
@franzanth.bsky.social

We present: The Art of #InverteFest - August 2026 Edition A digital art book showcasing the work of 100 artists, in celebration of overlooked invertebrate fauna. Thank you to the artists who contributed to our book! Download & submit to the next edition: invertefest.com/#artbook #Art #SciArt

Emily Mitchell reposted

franz
@franzanth.bsky.social

#InverteFest begins at midnight your local time. Post your invertebrate art, join the community art book, go find critters in the wild, celebrate with us using the hashtag!

Emily Mitchell reposted

Joe Keating
@evopalaeo.bsky.social

⚠️Please repost!⚠️ Over 99% of species that ever lived are extinct. Without palaeontology, the new Natural History GCSE will only cover a snapshot of life's history. We're making the case for fossils in the new GCSE 🦴🐚🌿 teach.ocr.org.uk/palaeontolog... The consultation is open now! Have your say👇

teach.ocr.org.ukGCSE Natural History - Palaeontology - Joseph KeatingJoseph Keating puts forward a case for including palaeontology in the new GCSE Natural History curriculum due to its unique deep-time perspective.

Emily Mitchell reposted

franz
@franzanth.bsky.social

Replying to @franzanth.bsky.social

Cameo: this wasn't part of the script but I had the power to #InsertAnInvert, so I specifically asked @kiabugboy.bsky.social to model us Dendropupa vetusta, the oldest land snail, which was also found in Joggins Formation. Please admire the snails. This is important.

Emily Mitchell reposted

Andy Lee, PhD
@andylee.bsky.social

In our Viewpoint (onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...) we synthesize the gametic definition (outlined by Janicke et al below) and other definitions of sex (e.g., multivariate definition). We contend that is NO consensus on “biological sex” (maybe a consensus isn’t actually necessary…)

onlinelibrary.wiley.comThere is No Consensus on Biological SexAt this critical moment when misinformation about sex is being applied to policy globally, scientific clarification on the definition of biological sex is valuable. Here, we evaluate the primary appr...
Tim Janicke@timjanicke.bsky.social

In a new #Viewpoint we argue that the binary definition of #BiologicalSex based on gamete size is a scientifically robust framework that is entirely compatible with the diversity of sexual phenotypes and human gender identities. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

onlinelibrary.wiley.comBiological Sex Is Binary and Rooted in AnisogamyDrawing on empirical evidence and evolutionary theory, we argue that biological sex is most coherently defined as a binary classification of reproductive strategies rooted in anisogamy (the productio....

Emily Mitchell reposted

Jay
@kakapojay.bsky.social

Some of the first reviews are in for Evolution, and I couldn't be prouder of our team ❤️ "Evolution should be compulsory viewing for everyone over the age of five." Apologies for the paywall, but some screengrabs below: www.ft.com/content/c6c0...

Emily Mitchell reposted

Ele Willoughby
@minouette.bsky.social

I keep underestimating the demand for my Feynman Diagram Bauhaus print, so I made another edition! 🧪🐡🎢 This linocut was inspired by the way the exuberant lines and shapes of Bauhaus paintings, like those of Wassily Kandinsky, reminded me Feynman diagrams showing particle reactions on the quantum

Emily Mitchell reposted

Palaeoncryptozoologist Briton
@raftingzalmoxes.bsky.social

Replying to @raftingzalmoxes.bsky.social

Oh, and apparently there will be VETULICOLIANS in Evolution with Chris Packham! If you have no idea what a 'vetulicolian' is, go watch Kiabugboy's 'Cambrian Not-Fishes (3D Paleoart)' video on youtube. www.radiotimes.com/tv/documenta...

radiotimes.comChris Packham, 65, is unrecognisable in exclusive 'prehistoric' Radio Times photoshoot and reveals having "loathed his body" since he was 16Naturalist, punk, neurodiversity champion, environmental activist, broadcaster and campaigner. How did Chris Packham become the agent provocateur of our age?

Emily Mitchell reposted

Terumbu
@terumbudivers.com

Giant clam #gili #giliislands #lombok #singapore #diving #scuba #trawangan #diveandstay #giliair #weekend #ocean #sealife #marinelife #shell #clam #coral

Emily Mitchell reposted

Kenneth De Baets
@djbirddanerd.bsky.social

Unique fingerprint of marine ectotherm body size change during hyperthermal crises: doi.org/10.1073/pnas... #Lilliputeffect | #extinction | #hyperthermal | #climatechange | #bodysize

doi.orgUnique fingerprint of marine ectotherm body size change during hyperthermal crises | PNASThe term “Lilliput Effect” describes a substantial decrease in the average body size of fossil assemblages during major environmental perturbations...

Emily Mitchell reposted

The Linnean Society of London
@linneansociety.bsky.social

Are humans really fish? Why are we the only animals with chins? Join us and Professor Max Telford on Thursday (6 PM) as he takes us inside one of science’s greatest quests: reconstructing the web of relationships between all our planet’s species. @maxjtelford.bsky.social Book here: bit.ly/4uPhlgw

eventbrite.co.ukThe Tree of Life (A User’s Manual)Max Telford takes us inside one of science’s greatest quests: reconstructing the web of relationships between all our planet’s species.

Emily Mitchell reposted

Nature Portfolio
@natureportfolio.nature.com

The appearance of the first animals in the late Ediacaran period was followed by a period of slow diversification. A study in Nature Ecology & Evolution concludes that widespread asexual reproduction via stolon probably constrained early animal evolution. #evosky #paleosky 🧪

go.nature.comThe influence of reproductive mode on resource competition and diversity patterns in Ediacaran early animal communities - Nature Ecology & EvolutionThe appearance of the first animals in the late Ediacaran period was followed by a period of relatively slow diversification. Here the authors show that asexual stoloniferous reproduction would have enabled co-existence of suboptimal interspecific competitors and constrained diversification.

Emily Mitchell reposted

Max Telford
@maxjtelford.bsky.social

It's very difficult to work out the relationships between spiral cleaving phyla. With interesting implications for their origins and the interpretation of Cambrian fossils. Work by @anaserrasilva.bsky.social. Supported by @leverhulme.ac.uk.

Ana Serra Silva@anaserrasilva.bsky.social

Now officially out in @elife.bsky.social! See how @maxjtelford.bsky.social and myself approached resolving spiralian relationships. doi.org/10.7554/eLif...

doi.orgAre interphylum spiralian relationships resolvable?Analyses of two independent phylogenomic datasets suggest an explosive radiation at the origin of Spiralia, with implications for understanding the group's evolutionary history.

Emily Mitchell reposted

Matt Willemsen
@mattotcha.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy

Earth’s Earliest Animals May Have Thrived Too Easily to Evolve https://www.sci.news/paleontology/ediacaran-animal-evolution-14835.html

sci.newssci.news**Fossils from some of the oldest-known animals on Earth, dating from 574 million years ago (Ediacaran period), suggest that cloning, not competition, dominated the Ediacaran seas, slowing evolution until environmental stress helped drive the rise of sexual reproduction and a burst of biodiversity.** Artist’s reconstruction of the _Fractofusus_ community: the bottom right features a large _Fractofusus_ around which there are 5 to 8 medium specimens clustered; each of the medium specimens also has small specimens clustered around them; the small specimens therefore form an independent double cluster pattern, namely clusters of clusters. Image credit: C.G. Kenchington. After billions of years of microbial life, during the Ediacaran period, between 635 and 539 million years ago, life exploded in size and the first animals appeared. Some of these earliest animals, such as _Fractofusus_, could grow as tall as 2 m (6.6 feet), although most were much smaller. These animals looked more like ferns than any animal we would recognize today: they do not appear to have mouths, organs or means of movement, so they are thought to have absorbed nutrients from the water around them. And like most Ediacaran life forms, they disappeared from the fossil record at the beginning of the Cambrian period 540 million years ago, making it difficult for scientists to link them to any modern life forms. Researchers have previously determined that these early animals reproduced asexually, by sending out clones via stolons or runners, like modern strawberry plants. In the rich waters of the Ediacaran, they thrived. “Life was pretty nice during the Ediacaran, so the need for sex was rather limited,” said Dr. Emily Mitchell, a researcher at the University of Cambridge. “There was relatively little competition, so there was no real pressure to change anything.” Dr. Mitchell and her colleague, University of Cambridge’s Professor Andrea Manica, used a combination of laser scanning, spatial analysis and artificial intelligence to study Ediacaran fossils from Mistaken Point in Newfoundland, Canada. They first showed that asexual, stolon-based reproduction limited competition, then built a computer model to simulate how early animal communities might behave under different reproductive strategies. They ran the model thousands of times while a simple neural network helped narrow down which simulations best matched the diversity patterns seen in the fossil record. This approach, known as Approximate Bayesian Computation, allowed the researchers to work backwards from the real data to estimate how far organisms spread and how strongly they competed for resources. Using this method, they showed that limited dispersal linked to asexual, runner-based reproduction could explain why early animal communities had relatively few species, and why a later shift toward wider dispersal and sexual reproduction coincided with a sudden burst of evolutionary diversity. Competition and stress have been prime drivers of evolution for billions of years, but in the deep waters of the Ediacaran, asexual reproduction meant that competition was limited. “If you’re connected to your neighbor by these runners, then you’re sharing nutrients and you don’t need to compete with them,” Professor Manica said. However, as life in the Ediacaran slowly spread from the deep ocean to shallower waters, early animals faced more pressures: tides, storms, changing temperatures and nutrient levels all would have made life more precarious, leading to increased competition for resources. “If you’re suddenly in an environment where you’re essentially getting killed a couple of times per year, then that changes everything,” Dr. Mitchell said. “Stress essentially leads to sexual reproduction, and when that happens, we can see a massive increase in dispersal distances as animals attempt to colonize new areas due to an increase in competition.” “As these early animals adapted to both a new mode of reproduction and new habitats, there was a corresponding increase in diversification, leading to the Ediacaran ‘second wave’ of animal evolution, a process that accelerated further in the Cambrian, once animals became mobile.” The study was published this week in the journal _Nature Ecology and Evolution_. _____ E.G. Mitchell & A. Manica. The influence of reproductive mode on resource competition and diversity patterns in Ediacaran early animal communities. _Nat Ecol Evol_ , published online June 9, 2026; doi: 10.1038/s41559-026-03094-2