About

David Fox is a professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. His research focuses on evolutionary paleoecology, examining the connections between changes in environmental conditions throughout Earth history and the resulting changes in the composition and structure of organismal communities. He employs methods such as stable isotope geochemistry, biogeography, and quantitative analyses of the 3D morphology of skulls, jaws, and teeth of mammals. Most of his projects concentrate on the Cenozoic record of mammals, with particular emphasis on the Neogene, Quaternary, and Recent periods. Additionally, he has collaborated on studies involving Cambrian brachiopods, Paleogene mammals, and squamates. His current research projects include the evolution of Neogene to Recent rodents in North America and Australasia, ecosystem change in the Miocene of eastern Africa, and the evolution of grassland ecosystems in the Great Plains and elsewhere since the late Paleogene.

Research topics

• Biology
• Ecology
• Paleontology
• Artificial Intelligence
• Computer Science
• Geography
• Machine Learning
• Evolutionary biology
• Zoology
• Distributed computing
• Parallel computing
• Database
• Operating system

Selected publications

• Towards a detailed record of Pacific Northwest ecosystem change: Middle Miocene phytoliths from Cave Basin, Central Oregon

  Abstracts with programs - Geological Society of America · 2025-01-01

  article
  PublisherDOI

• THE NEOGENE-QUATERNARY HISTORY OF C₄ GRASSLANDS AND SAVANNAS IN NORTH AMERICA: INSIGHTS FROM STABLE ISOTOPE PROXIES

  Abstracts with programs - Geological Society of America · 2025-01-01

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Stable Isotope Ecology of the Early Miocene Rusinga Island Mammalian Communities from the Hiwegi and Kulu Formations (Nyanza Province, Western Kenya)

  Palaeogeography Palaeoclimatology Palaeoecology · 2025-09-11 · 1 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Stable Isotope Ecology of the Early Miocene Rusinga Island Mammalian Communities from the Kulu and Hiwegi Formations

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Reassessing the Neogene History of Grasses in the Great Plains, U.S.A. Using Compilations of Carbon Isotope Data from Modern Plants, Paleosols, and Fossil Mammals

  Abstracts with programs - Geological Society of America · 2025-01-01

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• GEOCHRONOLOGY AND TERRESTRIAL PALEOENVIRONMENTS OF THE MIDDLE MIOCENE HOMINOID FOSSIL-BEARING STRATA AT BULUK, TURKANA BASIN, KENYA

  Abstracts with programs - Geological Society of America · 2024-01-01 · 1 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• A QUANTITATIVE FRAMEWORK FOR RECONSTRUCTING C₄ PLANT FRACTIONS IN ANCIENT BIOMES AND MAMMAL DIETS USING STABLE CARBON ISOTOPES

  Abstracts with programs - Geological Society of America · 2024-01-01

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Oldest evidence of abundant C ₄ grasses and habitat heterogeneity in eastern Africa

  Science · 2023 · 65 citations

  • Ecology
  • Geography
  • Biology

  grass-dominated habitats in Africa-and globally-by more than 10 million years, calling for revised paleoecological interpretations of mammalian evolution.

  PublisherDOI

• The evolution of hominoid locomotor versatility: Evidence from Moroto, a 21 Ma site in Uganda

  Science · 2023 · 31 citations

  • Biology
  • Ecology
  • Geography

  consumed water-stressed vegetation, and postcrania from the site indicate ape-like locomotor adaptations. These findings suggest that the origin of hominoid locomotor versatility is associated with foraging on leaves in heterogeneous, open woodlands rather than forests.

  PublisherDOI

• Table S1. from Developmental origin underlies evolutionary rate variation across the placental skull

  Open MIND · 2023-01-01

  dataset

  Full species and specimen data. Specimen details and species trait data.

  DOI

Recent grants

• ELT Collaborative research: Evolutionary and ecological responses of small mammal communities to habitat and climate change over the last 5 million years

  NSF · $187k · 2013–2017

• Collaborative Research: Quaternary Archaeology and Environments of Rusinga and Mfangano Islands, Kenya

  NSF · $28k · 2010–2015

• Collaborative research: Paleobiology and exinction of mammoths in northern Siberia and Wrangel Island

  NSF · $210k · 2006–2012

Frequent coauthors

• Anjali Goswami

  Natural History Museum

  246 shared

• Jonathan I. Bloch

  Florida Museum of Natural History

  243 shared

• Jason J. Head

  University of Cambridge

  242 shared

• Ralph E. Johnson

  241 shared

• Mark D. Uhen

  George Mason University

  241 shared

• George Mason University

  Portland State University

  241 shared

• Shuhai Xiao

  241 shared

• Wolfgang Kiessling

  241 shared