Chris Venditti

Indirect genomic effects shape cancer risk across species

This study identifies genes linked to cancer risk variation across species, showing indirect effects on body size dominate cancer suppression, while direct effects increase tumour prevalence.

Phylogenetic meta-analysis implicates large brains and our unusual posture in human handedness

This study uses phylogenetic meta-analysis to show that human handedness is linked to large brain size and upright posture, distinguishing it from other primates.

CactEcoDB: Trait, spatial, environmental, phylogenetic and diversification data for the cactus family

CactEcoDB provides integrated ecological, trait, and phylogenetic data for over 1,000 cactus species to support comparative research on trait evolution and macroevolutionary dynamics.

A functional Red List Index for monitoring trends in functional diversity

The paper introduces a functional Red List Index (fRLI) to monitor functional diversity trends by weighting species by morphological uniqueness, finding higher extinction risk for locally unique species.

The coevolution of encephalization and manual dexterity in hominins and other primates

This study examines the co-evolution of brain size and thumb length across primates, finding a strong association and showing hominins follow the same evolutionary trend.

Threat reduction must be coupled with targeted recovery programmes to conserve global bird diversity

This study shows that global bird diversity conservation needs both threat reduction and targeted recovery programs to prevent extinctions and functional diversity loss.

Punctuational evolution is pervasive in distal site metastatic colonization

The paper shows that metastatic tumors exhibit more punctuational molecular evolution compared to primary tumors, indicating different evolutionary modes in cancer progression.

Climatic-environmental influences on hominin brain size over the last 5 million years

This study uses Bayesian phylogenetic methods to analyze hominin fossil data and finds that colder and more variable temperatures positively influence brain size evolution within species, but this effect weakens in later Homo species.