William Crepet

With respect to my own research, my focus is on establishing a dependable fossil record for the flowering plants that includes reliably identified floral evidence. This approach is unique and informative due to the nature of flowers, the phylogenetic significance of their characters and adaptive significance. Such a record has implications for climate change, molecular evolution, hyper radiations characteristic of the angiosperms and for evaluating ecological-evolutionary hypotheses invoked to explain angiosperm dominance of modern ecosystems. Such research has implications for systematics/systematics methodologies and for the evaluation of molecular clock based timing models.

Publications

View publications on Google Scholar.

Selected journal articles:

• Martinez Millan, M., & Crepet, W. L. (2014). The fossil record of the Solanaceae revisited and revised - the fossil record of Rhamnaceae enhanced. Botanical Review. 80:73-106.
• Crepet, W. L., & Niklas, K. J. (2009). Darwin’s second 'abominable mystery': Why are there so many angiosperm species? American Journal of Botany. 96:366-381.
• Rothwell, G. W., Crepet, W. L., & Stockey, R. A. (2009). Is the anthophyte hypothesis alive and well? New evidence from the reproductive structures of Bennettitales. American Journal of Botany. 96:296-322.
• Crepet, W. L. (2008). The fossil record of angiosperms: requiem or renaissance? Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden. 95:3-33.
• Gandolfo Nixon, M. A., Nixon, K. C., & Crepet, W. L. (2004). Cretaceous flowers of Nymphaeaceae and implications for complex insect entrapment pollination mechanisms in Early Angiosperms. PNAS: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 101:8056-8060.
• Crepet, W. L., Nixon, K. C., & Gandolfo Nixon, M. A. (2004). Fossil evidence and phylogeny: the age of major angiosperm clades based on mesofossil and macrofossil evidence from Cretaceous deposits. American Journal of Botany. 91:1666-1682.

Book Chapters

• Crepet, W. L., & Stevenson, D. (2010). The Bennettitales (Cycadeoidales): a Preliminary Perspective on this Arguably Enigmatic Group. p. 214-244 Plants in Mesozic Time: Morphological Innovations, Phylogeny, Ecosystems Carole T. Gee (ed.), Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN.

Book Sections

• Crepet, W. L. (2013). Origin and Diversification of Angiosperms. p. 613-627 Encyclopedia of Biodiversity Simon A. Levin (ed.), Elsevier, Netherlands.

• Joseph F. Cullman Fellowship Yale University
• Top 25 contributors (of research papers) to the American Journal of Botany 2014 Botanical Society of America
• SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence (2016)
• Outstanding Service to the CALS Community Award (2015) CALS Cornell
• The Ermine Cowles Case Memorial Lecture (2012) University of Michigan
• Keynote Address (2010) International Palaeontological Congress
• Botanical Society of America Merit Award (2007) Botanical Society of America

My overall view of teaching is exemplified in my teaching focus for PLSCI 6560, Topics in Plant Evolution where the emphasis is on the integration of the fossil record with evolutionary theory in an ecological setting. This course involves hands on experience with study of fossils in the laboratory giving students the opportunity to observe directly the past diversity of life. This diversity is given structure in the form of phylogenetic context-a correlate of the evolutionary process and one that incorporates theory and important developments in molecular genetics, that is then related back to evolutionary theory in an ecological setting. The course is divided into lecture and laboratory with the lecture emphasizing major issues in evolutionary biology, systematics and key steps in plant evolution rather than being solely a compendium of facts. Testing is done in laboratory to insure that essential fact based learning is accomplished but lecture exams are conceptual and synthetic in nature and require the cogent presentation of structured arguments that are well reasoned and thoroughly evidenced. 

• PLSCI 6560: Topics in Plant Evolution
• PLSCI 2480: Vascular Plant Systematics
• PLSCI 1150: CSI: Forensic Botany