biology

John Alroy

John Alroy is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand John Alroy rather than just read about it. In short: John Alroy is a paleobiologist born in New York in 1966 and now residing in Sydney, Australia. Area of expertise Alroy specializes in diversity curves, speciation, and extinction of North American fossil mammals and Phanerozoic marine invertebrates, connecting regional and local diversity, taxonomic composition, body mass distributions, ecomorphology, and phylogenetic patterns to intrinsic diversity dynamics, evolut…

Key takeaways

John Alroy belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect John Alroy to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of John Alroy from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

John Alroy is a paleobiologist born in New York in 1966 and now residing in Sydney, Australia.

Area of expertise Alroy specializes in diversity curves, speciation, and extinction of North American fossil mammals and Phanerozoic marine invertebrates, connecting regional and local diversity, taxonomic composition, body mass distributions, ecomorphology, and phylogenetic patterns to intrinsic diversity dynamics, evolutionary trends, mass extinctions, and the effects of global climate change. In a 3 September 2010 online article by Hugh Collins, a contributor for AOL Online Science, Alroy was quoted in a newly released study paper from Sydney's Macquarie University that "It would be unwise to assume that any large number of species can be lost today without forever altering the basic biological character of Earth's oceans."

Education He graduated from Hunter College High School in 1984. He then received his BA from Reed College, Department of Biology, in 1989. And then his PHD from University of Chicago, Committee on Evolutionary Biology, in 1994.

Professional life In 1989, Alroy began his career at the Smithsonian Institution as a predoctoral intern, where he worked in the Department of Paleobiology and the Evolution of Terrestrial Ecosystems program. He later conducted research from 1994 to 1996 at the University of Arizona as part of its Research Training Group in the Analysis of Biodiversification. From 1998 to 2010, he worked at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis as a postdoctoral fellow and with the University of California, Santa Barbara as an assistant and later associate researcher.

Honors 1994 Romer Prize of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology. 2007 Charles Schuchert Award of the Paleontological Society. 2010 NAS Award for Scientific Reviewing from the National Academy of Sciences.

Appearance event ordination Appearance Event Ordination (AEO) is a superior form of dating fossil collections, according to Alroy. Age assignments to North American land mammals are provided for comparison and may disagree with the AEO estimates because they are taken straight from published sources. Therefore, the assignments reflect the subjective opinions of the authors who described the fossils. They are not based on quantitative analyses of faunal and biostratigraphic data. "AEO age estimates are preferable because they are objective, repeatable, and quantitative. That's because AEO uses explicitly recorded and clearly defined numerical data, and because it uses algorithmic search and optimization criteria instead of verbal argumentation."

Selected publications The shifting balance of diversity among major marine animal groups. Science 329:1191–1194 (2010). Speciation and extinction in the fossil record of North American mammals. pp. 301–323 in R. Butlin, J. Bridle, and D. Schluter (eds.), Speciation and Patterns of Diversity. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (2009). Dynamics of origination and extinction in the marine fossil record. PNAS 105:11536-11542 (2008). Phanerozoic trends in the global diversity of marine invertebrates. Science 321:97–100 (with 34 others: 2008). Statistical independence of escalatory ecological trends in Phanerozoic marine invertebrates. Science 312:897–900 (with Madin et al.: 2006). A multispecies overkill simulation of the end-Pleistocene megafaunal mass extinction. Science 292:1893–1896 (2001). Global climate change and North American mammalian evolution by John Alroy, Paul L. Koch, and James C. Zachos; The Paleontological Society (2000). Successive approximations of diversity curves: Ten more years in the library. Geology 28:1023–1026 (2000). Equilibrial diversity dynamics in North American mammals. pp. 232–287 in M. L. McKinney and J. Drake (eds.), Biodiversity Dynamics: Turnover of Populations, Taxa and Communities. Columbia University Press, York (1998). Cope's rule and the dynamics of body mass evolution in North American mammals. Science 280:731–734. Constant extinction, constrained diversification, and uncoordinated stasis in North American mammals. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 127:285–311 (1996).

References

http://www.nceas.ucsb.edu/~alroy/ Archived 30 January 2019 at the Wayback Machine University of California, Santa Barbara.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with John Alroy

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what John Alroy claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to John Alroy before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about John Alroy ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of John Alroy

In research: John Alroy appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses John Alroy in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: John Alroy is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1966 births, American paleontologists, American science writers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for John Alroy outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study John Alroy in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what John Alroy means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain John Alroy out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is John Alroy in simple terms?

John Alroy is a paleobiologist born in New York in 1966 and now residing in Sydney, Australia. Area of expertise Alroy specializes in diversity curves, speciation, and extinction of North American fossil mammals and Phanerozoic marine invertebrates, connecting regional and local diversity, taxonomi…

Why does John Alroy matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study John Alroy?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on John Alroy.