Anna Penna

Welcome to my about.me page! I am a Ph.D. student in Biological Anthropology interested in the evolution of body size in primates. Primates, the third most species-rich group of mammals, show remarkable variation in body size. For instance, mouse lemurs are six thousand times smaller than gorillas! Through the course of primate evolution, several lineages have independently evolved miniaturized body sizes. Tamarins, marmosets, tarsiers, dwarf galagos, pygmy lorises, mouse and dwarf lemurs weight from 35 to 400 grams. My Ph.D. research asks if these miniaturized lineages are an example of convergent adaptive evolution. To answer this question, I integrate paleontological, phenotypic, and genomic data to test hypotheses about trait and molecular evolution under a phylogenetic comparative framework. You can learn more about my research by clicking on the links below.