The Fossil Detective: How Lee Hsiang Liow Unlocks Evolution's Cold Cases
The ancient fossils, silent for millions of years, finally reveal their secrets to a scientist with a violinist's precision and a detective's keen eye.
Schuchert Award Winner
Quantitative Paleobiology
Evolutionary Analysis
Introduction: More Than Just Old Bones
What can the fossil record tell us about our future? This question lies at the heart of the work of Lee Hsiang Liow, an innovative paleontologist whose research transcends simple fossil collection.
In 2020, her exceptional contributions were recognized with the Paleontological Society's Charles Schuchert Award, a prestigious honor given to a researcher early in their career whose work reflects exceptional excellence and promise in paleontology2 6 .
Liow's work represents a revolution in how we study ancient life. She transforms paleontology from a descriptive science into a rigorous, quantitative discipline that can test complex hypotheses about evolution, extinction, and ecological interaction over million-year timescales. By applying sophisticated statistical models to fossil data, she has become a leading figure in uncovering the fundamental rules that govern life's history on Earth1 .
The Scientist and the Schuchert Award
The Charles Schuchert Award honors paleontologists under the age of 40 who have demonstrated exceptional promise and accomplishment. Named after the renowned American invertebrate paleontologist Charles Schuchert, the award has a distinguished list of recipients since its inception in 1973, including prominent scientists like Stephen Jay Gould, David Raup, and Niles Eldredge6 .
Charles Schuchert Award
Awarded to Lee Hsiang Liow in 2020 for exceptional promise and accomplishment in paleontology
Cross-Disciplinary Background
Began in conservation biology with research on birds, bees, butterflies, and mangroves before transitioning to paleobiology1 .
Quantitative Innovation
Develops and applies sophisticated statistical models to answer novel questions about evolution and extinction.
International Recognition
"Among the top quantitative paleobiologists worldwide who are at the cutting edge of work on evolutionary rates, extinctions, and macroevolution"1 .
Key Concepts and Theories Brought to Life
Liow's research has illuminated several fundamental concepts in evolutionary biology, providing empirical evidence for theories that were previously largely conceptual.
This evolutionary theory suggests organisms must constantly adapt and evolve not just to gain advantages, but simply to survive against competing organisms in an ever-changing environment.
Liow, along with colleagues Van Valen and Stenseth, expanded this concept from populations to entire taxa and communities, showing how these dynamics play out over geological timescales1 5 .
In her provocative paper "Do deviants live longer?" Liow demonstrated that contrary to what might be expected, long-lived taxa tend to exhibit average morphology within a clade rather than extreme or deviant forms.
This counterintuitive finding suggests evolutionary longevity may favor morphological stability rather than specialization1 .
Liow's work has challenged the long-standing assumption that biological interactions like competition are undetectable in the fossil record.
Her research on clams and brachiopods showed that these groups have influenced each other's evolutionary trajectories for millions of years, proving they are "more than ships that pass in the night"1 5 .
A Deep Dive: The Two-Million-Year Bryozoan Experiment
One of Liow's most remarkable research programs involves studying competitive interactions among bryozoans through a two-million-year fossil sequence in New Zealand.
Methodology: Paleontology Meets Modern Statistics
Liow and her international team of collaborators employed a multi-faceted approach to extract unprecedented information from these ancient bryozoan fossils1 :
Stratigraphic Collection
Systematically collecting fossils from precisely dated sedimentary layers spanning two million years, establishing a reliable temporal framework1 .
Competitive Outcome Documentation
Documenting evidence of competition by examining fossilized overgrowth patterns between different bryozoan species, where one colony grew over another1 5 .
Trait Measurement
Meticulously measuring morphological features related to competitive ability, including size, defensive structures, and growth forms5 .
Model Application
Applying sophisticated statistical models, including capture-mark-recapture (CMR) methods—typically used in modern ecology—to estimate origination and extinction rates from fossil occurrence data1 .
Molecular Phylogenetics
Building comprehensive molecular phylogenetic frameworks for bryozoans, making her lab one of only two in the world doing this critical work1 .
Analysis of fossil specimens reveals competitive interactions over geological timescales
Results and Analysis: Predicting Ancient Competition
The results of this long-term study have been groundbreaking. Liow and her team discovered that competitive outcomes in these ancient marine communities were predictable based on the organisms' traits5 .
| Trait Category | Specific Characteristics | Competitive Advantage |
|---|---|---|
| Size | Larger colony size | Overgrowth capability |
| Weapons | Specialized defensive structures | Deterrence of competitors |
| Armor | Robust skeletal elements | Resistance to overgrowth |
"The extent to which competitive outcomes in the past can be predicted based on the traits of species, just as in the present"5 .
Specifically, they found that species with larger sizes, specialized defensive structures, and robust armor tended to win competitive encounters. More importantly, they demonstrated that these competitive hierarchies persisted through time, affecting the long-term evolutionary success of different bryozoan lineages1 5 .
Perhaps most significantly, this research provided one of the few clear demonstrations of competition in the fossil record, opening new possibilities for studying biological interactions deep in Earth's history.
The Scientist's Toolkit: Paleontology's Modern Arsenal
Liow's innovative work is made possible by deploying a sophisticated array of analytical tools borrowed from other fields and adapted for paleontological research.
| Tool/Method | Original Field | Application in Paleontology |
|---|---|---|
| Capture-Mark-Recapture (CMR) | Modern ecology | Estimating origination/extinction rates from fossil occurrences |
| Multivariate Linear Stochastic Differential Equations | Mathematics/Physics | Modeling complex evolutionary processes and causality |
| Molecular Phylogenetics | Molecular biology | Building evolutionary trees for fossil and living bryozoans |
| AI-Assisted Morphometrics | Computer science | Automated measurement and characterization of fossil shapes |
Statistical Innovation
Liow's application of capture-mark-recapture methods enables researchers to model extinction and origination rates as functions of other variables like climate or body size1 .
This approach has allowed her to tackle fundamental questions such as whether extinction risks vary with behavior or whether sampling probabilities vary with different rock types1 .
Interdisciplinary Approach
By borrowing methods from ecology, mathematics, and computer science, Liow has transformed paleontology into a more rigorous, quantitative discipline.
This methodological innovation represents a significant shift in how paleontologists approach the fossil record and ask questions about evolutionary processes.
Quantitative Paleobiology: A New Frontier
Beyond her specific findings about bryozoans and other organisms, Liow's broader impact lies in her development of quantitative methods that allow paleontologists to ask more sophisticated questions of the fossil record1 .
| Research Question | Method Applied | Key Finding |
|---|---|---|
| Do extinction rates vary with body size? | CMR models | Larger mammals have higher origination and extinction rates1 |
| Does behavior affect extinction risk? | CMR models | "Sleep-or-hide" mammals have lower extinction risk1 |
| Did bivalves influence brachiopod diversification? | Multivariate linear stochastic differential equations | Brachiopod and bivalve diversifications are intertwined1 |
| Are competitive outcomes predictable in fossil communities? | Trait-based analysis with CMR | Size, weapons, and armor predict competitive success5 |
"These aren't cases of applying a new method for its own sake; rather, all these questions would have been hard to answer in as convincing a manner using more standard paleontological tools"1 .
Conclusion: Reading the Past to Understand the Future
Lee Hsiang Liow's work demonstrates that paleontology is far more than the study of dead things—it's a dynamic science that provides unique insights into the processes that shape biodiversity over deep time. By developing and applying innovative quantitative methods, she has transformed the fossil record from a static collection of specimens into a rich dataset that can answer fundamental questions about evolution and ecology.
Her Schuchert Award recognition celebrates not just her individual accomplishments, but the new direction she has helped chart for paleontology—one that embraces interdisciplinary approaches, quantitative rigor, and question-driven research. As climate change and human activities precipitate what many are calling the sixth mass extinction, understanding the dynamics of past extinction events and evolutionary processes has never been more important.
Through her continued work on bryozoans, evolutionary rates, and the development of new analytical methods, Liow is ensuring that paleontology will continue to provide vital insights into how life responds to environmental change—lessons from the past that may prove crucial for navigating the future.