Department of Biology

Faculty

Ben Waggoner, Ph. D. Assistant Professor of Biology 020 LSC University of Central Arkansas Conway, AR 72035-5003 (501) 450-5037 Fax (501) 450-5914 Email: benw@uca.edu

I am interested in the "big picture" of animal evolution: the origins of major animal phyla and superphyla, the timing of their origin, the global environment at that time, and its effect on diversification. I use paleontological data to look at these questions, concentrating on the late Precambrian soft-bodied "Ediacara biota" (600-544 million years old) and on various Cambrian problematic fossils (544-505 million years old). I use these fossils to look at questions in animal phylogeny, paleoecology, and biogeography. My field work focuses on the fossils of the White Sea coast in northern Russia, and I also maintain research programs in the Precambrian and Cambrian rocks of eastern California and western Nevada.

I also help to maintain and develop the WWW pages for the Department of Biology, the Environmental Sciences program, and the scanning electron microscope and confocal microscope facilities. I curate the Department's teaching collection of fossils, and I am a faculty sponsor, along with Dr. Culwell, of the UCA Biology Club.

Home Page

Professional Activities

Courses Taught: Introductory Biology Seminar; Biology for General Education; Evolution; Systematics and Classification; History of Biology; Scanning Electron Microscopy

Recent Publications:

Waggoner, B. M. The Ediacara biota in time and space. American Zoologist: in preparation. Hagadorn, J. W. and Waggoner, B. M. 2000. Ediacaran fossils from the southwestern United States. Journal of Paleontology 74(2): 349-359. Waggoner, B. M. 1999. Biogeographic analyses of the Ediacara biota: a conflict with paleotectonic reconstructions. Paleobiology 25(4): 440-458.