Editor's Note: This piece was originally published online in the UNM BioBlog on Feb. 12, 2015, written by Bryan McLean. This is part of our project to help connect the Daily Lobo audience to more members of our community.
Everything in biology has a history. Biodiversity waxes and wanes. Communities are disassembled and reassembled. Organisms co-evolve. Knowing the timescale of these processes — and not just that they occur — is key. Bryan McLean discusses how scientists use different types of information (i.e., fossils and DNA sequences) to determine the history of life in the UNM BioBlog.
Bryan McLean is a guest columnist at the Daily Lobo and a postdoctoral researcher at the Florida Museum of Natural History. He graduated with his PhD from UNM earlier this year. He can be contacted on Twitter @bryansmclean.