The give and take of biodiversity: Life on earth

To the best of our knowledge, Earth is the only place in the universe that is home to life.

How and why has this life developed? What were the great explosions of biodiversity that launched the living world? And what are the Earth-crunching crises that nearly ended it all?

Palaeontologists from Victoria University of Wellington and GNS Science will explore these questions, whilst looking at a stunning fossil record found on the wobbly nugget of rock known as Aotearoa that sits atop the drowned continent of Zealandia.

Join geologist, Professor James Crampton as he traces the development of complex life and ecosystems around the world over the past 600 million years.

Speaker Biography

Professor James Crampton is a palaeontologist at Victoria University of Wellington and GNS Science. His early research concerned giant Cretaceous marine clams, up to 2 m long, that lived at the same time as the dinosaurs. Over the past 20 years or so, he has also worked on diverse topics from the quantification of biological shape and evolutionary patterns, to the rates and processes driving evolution and extinction in the marine plankton.

Venue: Soundings Theatre, Te Papa, 55 Cable Street, Te Aro, Wellington.

For further information and to buy tickets: www.friendsoftepapa.org.nz/event/beyond-te-papa-the-give-take-of-biodiversity-life-on-earth/