I have a background in fossil plants with a specialization in palynology - the study of microscopic pollen, spores, and various organic-walled microfossils. My research interests are primarily in the evolution of land plants from their algal ancestors. This has expanded in recent years to include the fossil origins of plant development and the evolution of complex multicellularity in both plants and animals. I also workon the fossil record of euglenids, which are thought by some biologists to be basalorganisms in the eukaryotic tree of life. My work involves field-based collections from North America (including the Grand Canyon, The Mid-Continent Rift System, and the Appalachian Mountains), the Northwest Scottish Highlands, Australia, and Saudi Arabia.
Recent Publications
- Strother, Paul K & Wilson A Taylor. 2024. A Fossil Record of Spores before Sporophytes. Diversity 2024, 16, 428. https://doi.org/10.3390/d16070428
- Strother, Paul K. 2023. An evo-devo perspective on no Ordovician land plants.Estonian Journal of Earth Sciences 2023, 72, 1, 102–105 https://doi.org/10.3176/earth.2023.31
- van de Schootbrugge, B, A Koutsodendris, WA Taylor, F Weston, CH Wellman& PK Strother. 2023. Recognition of an extended record of euglenoid cysts: implications for the end-Triassic mass extinction. Review of Palæobotany and palynology. DOI: 10.1016/j.revpalbo.2023.105043
- Slotznick, Sarah P, NL Swanson-Hysell, Y Zhang, KE Clayton, CH Wellman, NJTosca & PK Strother. 2023. Reconstructing the paleoenvironment of anoxygenated Mesoproterozoic shoreline and its record of life. Geol. Soc. Am. Bull. (2023) doi:10.1130/b36634.1.
- Strother, Paul K. & Clinton Foster. 2021. A fossil record of land plant origins from charophyte algae. Science 373 (6556), 792-796. doi:10.1126/science.abj2927
- Strother, PK, M Brasier, D Wacey, M Saunders, L Timpe, & CH Wellman. 2021.A possible billion-year-old holozoan with differentiated multicellularity. Current Biology 31 (12), P2658-P2665.E2, June 21, 2021.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2021.03.051
