Patrick J. Lewis Associate Professor Ph.D., Duke University Office: LDB 103B/103 Phone: (936) 294-3397 Fax: (936) 294-3940 Website: http://www.shsu.edu/~pjl001 E-mail: pjlewis@shsu.edu

Research Interests

My research spans a variety of periods, locations, and taxa while centering on the effects of environmental change on the skeletal and dental morphology of fossil mammals. In general, I use statistical methods to study changing morphologies and correlate them with the evolutionary forces that shaped them. By studying the environmental causes for variation in modern descendent taxa, I can build models that illuminate the synergy between structure and environment in the ancestral taxa. These models indicate what factors were responsible for driving evolutionary changes in particular features, ultimately allowing a better understanding of how evolution proceeds in mammalian lineages.

Current Projects

My current research projects focus on: 1) understanding the past and present environments of the Koanaka Hills region of Botswana; 2) rebuilding the paleoenvironments of several South Africa Pliocene and Pleistocene localities, including the Florisbad, Coopers, and Meloding Railway Cut localities; 3) better understanding the forces that affect bone modification using changes in the late Quaternary bison lineage as a model; and 4) studying how those species that dramatically reconstruct their environments (such as beavers) impact their own evolutionary trajectories. I am currently involved with ongoing paleontological field projects in Texas, South Africa and Botswana.

Recent Selected Publications

Alicia M. Kennedy, Bhart-Anjan S. Bhullar, Patrick J. Lewis and Mohutsiwa Gabadirwe. Preliminary Analysis of a Mid-Pleistocene Herpetofauna from Botswana. (in press). Current Research in the Pleistocene.

Darryl J. de Ruiter, Juliet Brophy, Patrick J. Lewis, Lee Berger, and Steven E. Churchill. (in press). Animal paleocommunity composition and the paleoenvironment of Plovers Lake, South Africa. Journal of Human Evolution.

Patrick J. Lewis, Briggs Buchanan, Eileen Johnson, and Steven E. Churchill. (2007). The evolution of Bison bison: a view from the Southern Plains. Bulletin of the Texas Archeological Society, 78(197-204).

Patrick J. Lewis and Elwyn L. Simons. (2007). Evolutionary trends in the rodent fauna from the Fayum of Egypt. Palaeontologia Africana, 42:37-42.

Briggs Buchanan, Eileen Johnson, Richard Strauss, and Patrick J. Lewis. (2007). A morphometric approach to assessing late paleoindian projectile point variability on the Southern High Plains. Plains Anthropologist, 51(203):279-300.