Stewart Edie

• Ph.D., University of Chicago

Stewart is a paleobiologist who tackles broad questions in biodiversity science by building and analyzing big-data libraries of modern and fossil specimens. He’s researched topics such as why biodiversity declines from the tropics to the poles, how mass extinctions reorganized biodiversity, and how tradeoffs in organismal form, function, and energetics influenced the evolutionary fates of animal groups. Stewart mostly studies these topics in marine bivalves—clams, oysters, mussels, cockles, and others—as they have an astonishing diversity in today’s ocean and a deep fossil history dating back some half a billion years. Full list of publications on Google Scholar.

The Edie Lab at NMNH:

• Dr. Sarah Leventhal
• Dr. Kat Turk

Journal Article

• Edie, Stewart M., Collins, Katie S., and Jablonski, David. 2025. "The end-Cretaceous mass extinction restructured functional diversity but failed to configure the modern marine biota." Science Advances, 11, (21). https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adv1171.
• Jablonski, David and Edie, Stewart M. 2025. "Mass extinctions and their rebounds: a macroevolutionary framework." Paleobiology, https://doi.org/10.1017/pab.2024.13.
• Bello, Abubakar, Edie, Stewart M., Yessoufou, Kowiyou, and Muellner-Riehl, Alexandra. 2024. "Trends in botanical exploration in Nigeria forecast over 1000 yet undescribed vascular plant species." Annals of Botany, 133, (5-6) 789–800. https://doi.org/10.1093/aob/mcad106.
• Edie, Stewart M., Collins, Katie S., and Jablonski, David. 2024. "Testing for allocation strategies and evolutionary tradeoffs in the bivalve shell." Journal of Molluscan Studies, 90, (4). https://doi.org/10.1093/mollus/eyae047.
• Foote, Michael, Edie, Stewart M., and Jablonski, David. 2024. "Ecological structure of diversity-dependent diversification in Phanerozoic marine bivalves." Biology Letters, 20, (1). https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2023.0475.
• Keogh, Sean M., Pfeiffer, John M., Simons, Andrew M., and Edie, Stewart M. 2024. "Riverine flow rate drives widespread convergence in the shell morphology of imperiled freshwater mussels." Evolution, 78, (1) 39–52. https://doi.org/10.1093/evolut/qpad190.
• Leventhal, Sarah, Edie, Stewart M., Morrison, Rebecca, and Simpson, Carl. 2024. "Origin of division of labor is decoupled from polymorphism in colonial animals." PNAS Nexus, https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgae476.
• Nigro, Emily R., Collins, Katie S., Edie, Stewart M., Crouch, Nicholas M. A., and Jablonski, David. 2024. "Key Adaptive Trait Promotes Contrasting Modes of Diversification in a Bivalve Clade." Evolutionary Biology, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11692-024-09643-6.
• Tomašových, Adam, Kidwell, Susan M., Dai, Ran, Alexander, Clark R., Kaufman, Darrell S., Edie, Stewart, Leonard-Pingel, Jill S., McNinch, Jesse E., Parker, Thomas, and Wadman, Heidi M. 2024. "Bioturbation increases time averaging despite promoting shell disintegration: a test using anthropogenic gradients in sediment accumulation and burrowing on the southern California shelf." Paleobiology, 50, (3) 424–451. https://doi.org/10.1017/pab.2024.39.
• Edie, Stewart M., Collins, Katie S., and Jablonski, David. 2023. "High-throughput micro-CT scanning and deep learning segmentation workflow for analyses of shelly invertebrates and their fossils: Examples from marine Bivalvia." Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 11 1127756. https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2023.1127756.
• Curley, Allison N., Petersen, Sierra V., Edie, Stewart M., and Guo, Weifu. 2023. "Biologically driven isotopic fractionations in bivalves: from palaeoenvironmental problem to palaeophysiological proxy." Biological Reviews, https://doi.org/10.1111/brv.12940.
• Huang, Shan, Edie, Stewart M., Collins, Katie S., Crouch, Nicholas M. A., Roy, Kaustuv, and Jablonski, David. 2023. "Diversity, distribution and intrinsic extinction vulnerability of exploited marine bivalves." Nature Communications, 14, (1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-40053-y.
• Jablonski, David and Edie, Stewart M. 2023. "Perfect storms shape biodiversity in time and space." Evolutionary Journal of the Linnean Society, 2, (1). https://doi.org/10.1093/evolinnean/kzad003.
• Edie, Stewart M., Collins, Katie S., and Jablonski, David. 2023. "Convergence and contingency in the evolution of a specialized mode of life: multiple origins and high disparity of rock-boring bivalves." Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 290, (1992). https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2022.1907.
• Zhou, Sharon, Edie, Stewart M., Collins, Katie S., Crouch, Nicholas M. A., and Jablonski, David. 2023. "Cambrian origin but no early burst in functional disparity for Class Bivalvia." Biology Letters, 19, (5). https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2023.0157.
• Karp, Madeline A., Phillips, Brennan, and Edie, Stewart M. 2023. "Investigations into 3D-printed nautiloid-inspired pressure housings." Bioinspiration & Biomimetics, 18, (6) 066015. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-3190/acfeb8.
• Smith, B. P., Edie, S. M., and Fischer, W. W. 2023. "Tracing energy inputs into the seafloor using carbonate sediments." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 120, (9). https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2215833120.
• Edie, Stewart M., Khouja, Safia C., Collins, Katie S., Crouch, Nicholas M. A., and Jablonski, David. 2022. "Evolutionary modularity, integration and disparity in an accretionary skeleton: analysis of venerid Bivalvia." Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 289, (1967). https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2021.1199.
• Edie, Stewart M., Collins, Katie S., and Jablonski, David. 2022. "Specimen alignment with limited point-based homology: 3D morphometrics of disparate bivalve shells (Mollusca: Bivalvia)." PeerJ, 10. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.13617.
• Crouch, Nicholas M. A., Edie, Stewart M., Collins, Katie S., Bieler, Ruediger, and Jablonski, David. 2021. "Calibrating phylogenies assuming bifurcation or budding alters inferred macroevolutionary dynamics in a densely sampled phylogeny of bivalve families." Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 288, (1964). https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2021.2178.
• Edie, Stewart M., Collins, Katie S., and Jablonski, David. 2020. "Hinge and ecomorphology of Legumen Conrad, 1858 (Bivalvia, Veneridae), and the contraction of venerid morphospace following the end-Cretaceous extinction." Journal of Paleontology, 94, (3) 489–497. https://doi.org/10.1017/jpa.2019.100.
• Collins, K. S., Edie, Stewart M., Gao, T., Bieler, R., and Jablonski, David. 2019. "Spatial filters of function and phylogeny determine morphological disparity with latitude." PLOS ONE, 14, (8). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0221490.
• Schumm, M., Edie, S. M., Collins, K. S., Gómez-Bahamón, V., Supriya, K., White, Alexander E., Price, T. D., and Jablonski, D. 2019. "Common latitudinal gradients in functional richness and functional evenness across marine and terrestrial systems." Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 286, (1908). https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2019.0745.
• Collins, K. S., Edie, S. M., Hunt, Gene, Roy, K., and Jablonski, D. 2018. "Extinction risk in extant marine species integrating palaeontological and biodistributional data." Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 285, (1887) 285–285. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2018.1698.
• Cronin, Kelly E., Dietl, Gregory P., Kelley, Patricia H., and Edie, Stewart M. 2018. "Life span bias explains live–dead discordance in abundance of two common bivalves." Paleobiology, 44, (4) 783–797. https://doi.org/10.1017/pab.2018.32.
• Edie, Stewart M., Valentine, James W., and Jablonski, David. 2018. "Contrasting responses of functional diversity to major losses in taxonomic diversity." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 115, (4) 732–737. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1717636115.
• Edie, Stewart M., Huang, Shan, Collins, Katie S., Roy, Kaustuv, and Jablonski, David. 2018. "Loss of Biodiversity Dimensions through Shifting Climates and Ancient Mass Extinctions." Integrative and Comparative Biology, 58, (6) 1179–1190. https://doi.org/10.1093/icb/icy111.
• Sigwart, Julia D., Bennett, K. D., Edie, Stewart M., Mander, Luke, Okamura, Beth, Padian, Kevin, Wheeler, Quentin, Winston, Judith E., and Yeung, Norine W. 2018. "Measuring Biodiversity and Extinction-Present and Past." Integrative and Comparative Biology, 58, (6) 1111–1117. https://doi.org/10.1093/icb/icy113.
• Edie, Stewart M., Smits, Peter D., and Jablonski, David. 2017. "Probabilistic models of species discovery and biodiversity comparisons." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 114, (14) 3666–3671. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1616355114.
• Tomašových, Adam, Kennedy, Jonathan D., Betzner, Tristan J., Kuehnle, Nicole Bitler, Edie, Stewart, Kim, Sora, Supriya, K., White, Alexander E., Rahbek, Carsten, Huang, Shan, Price, Trevor D., and Jablonski, David. 2016. "Unifying latitudinal gradients in range size and richness across marine and terrestrial systems." Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 283, (1830) 20153027. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2015.3027.
• Edie, Stewart M. and Surge, D. 2013. "Deciphering Annual Growth Features in Chione Elevata Shells Using Isotope Sclerochronology." Palaios, 28, (2) 93–98. https://doi.org/10.2110/palo.2012.p12-044r.

Dataset

• Edie, Stewart M. 2024. [Dataset] Testing for allocation strategies and evolutionary tradeoffs in the bivalve shell: supplemental data and code. Distributed by National Museum of Natural History. https://doi.org/10.25573/DATA.26405074.
• Crouch, Nicholas M. A., Edie, Stewart M., Collins, Katie S., Bieler, Rüdiger, and Jablonski, David. 2021. [Dataset] Calibrating phylogenies assuming bifurcation or budding alters inferred macroevolutionary dynamics in a densely sampled phylogeny of bivalve families. Distributed by Dryad. https://doi.org/10.5061/DRYAD.1VHHMGQSD.
• Edie, Stewart M., Khouja, Safia C., Collins, Katie S., Crouch, Nicholas M. A., and Jablonski, David. 2021. [Dataset] Evolutionary modularity, integration and disparity in an accretionary skeleton: Analysis of venerid Bivalvia. Distributed by Dryad. https://doi.org/10.5061/DRYAD.DNCJSXM0S.