Chris Organ, a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, explains recent discoveries about the genomes of extinct animals, with emphasis on the relationship between birds and their dinosaur ancestors. Dr. Organ notes that most evidence for understanding the biology of extinct animals is absent from the fossil record. For example, evidence for behavior, genetics, and physiology rarely fossilize. Yet, as a primary research goal, paleontologists endeavor to reconstruct the biology of extinct organisms.
We are only now, in the post-genome era, able to ask comprehensive questions about how genes and genomes evolved among groups and populations over long periods of geologic time. Chris Organ's current research takes advantage of these developments to address fundamental questions that span broad levels of biological organization, from genes and morphology to paleobiology.