Research

My research focuses on the systematics and evolutionary history of dinosaurs, with an emphasis on the maniraptoran and ceratopsian clades. Much of my work is revisionary, and includes description of new taxa or poorly known fossils, as well as detailed systematic analyses at finer scale than has been the norm in dinosaur systematics so far.
Together with a number of colleagues at sister institutions, I am collaborating on a multi-year project in the NSF’s “Assembling the Tree of Life” program to study archosaur phylogeny with an emphasis on theropods. The principal aim of this project is to produce a densely sampled (generic level) phylogeny of archosaurs focusing on theropods including birds, through analysis of both morphological and molecular data in living and fossil taxa. My own contributions to this project consist of expanding the morphological character matrix through extensive first-hand study of relevant fossil specimens across the globe. My studies are not just restricted to ‘traditional’ morphological features of body fossils, but also incorporate physiological characters from eggshell and bone histology. At present, my fellow PI’s and I are finalizing the data gathering phase of the project. Ongoing revisions of taxa and characters form a significant part of this data collection effort for the morphological component of the grant. Large scale analyses of the data and sub-sets thereof will begin soon.
Among our chief goals will be to establish the ancestral state conditions for morphological characters in birds in order to better illuminate and quantify the macroevolutionary changes associated with the origin of this diverse and important clade. The combination of dense sampling and an abundance of new fossils from China, Argentina and elsewhere, will allow us to phylogenetically reconstruct and accurately study the evolutionary patterns of important morphological character systems related to locomotion, flight, reproduction and development as they relate to avian origins. This wealth of phylogenetic information will also serve as a test case for studying questions of what role fossils play in reconstructing phylogenies and how sampling may affect our understanding of rates of character change, taxon origination and diversification. Other related theoretical questions that we hope to explore include the use of morphological roots for clades with remote molecular outgroups plagued by long-branch problems, the effects of different character definition strategies on phylogenetic accuracy, and the possibility of performing rate calculations on morphological data for comparisons with molecular rates.

The Ceratopsia, or horned dinosaurs are a clade of small to gigantic herbivores, that were especially diverse in the Cretaceous, and which evolved a series of cranial display structures that have rendered them a dinosaurian model system for discussing questions of evolutionary mode. As in other dinosaurian clades, gigantism is a prominent trend in ceratopsian evolution, and ceratopsian body sizes range three orders of magnitude between small, basal forms and large, derived species. The step-wise accrual of ever more elaborate cranial display characters and mandibular and dental specializations in progressively larger, and more derived taxa, has inspired hypotheses that heterochrony and modular integration played important roles in ceratopsian evolution. Many of these traits represent phylogenetically informative characters and are observed to vary ontogenetically in relatively complete growth series of some taxa. This fact, coupled with my strong knowledge of the group garnered from my dissertation research, has prompted me to examine how such processes may underlie the evolutionary patterns within Ceratopsia.
I am lead-PI on a grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation (EAR- 0418648, collaborative research with G. Erickson, FSU) to study whether and how development and its timing may have played a role in ceratopsian evolution. In order to address questions of heterochrony, I will examine the ontogenetic staging of character state transitions for an extensive list (>130) of informative characters derived from my phylogenetic studies of ceratopsians, in taxa with well-sampled growth series. Post-hatchling developmental staging is determined in collaboration with G. Erickson (FSU) through growth curves calculated from skeletochronological and size data, using techniques that we have successfully applied to tyrannosaurs. Developmental stage data for various synapomorphic transformations are then be compared across taxa in a phylogenetic context, and shifts in developmental timing of character transitions are examined using two different methods: event pair analysis and a novel tree-based method that I developed specifically for this project. This evo-devo based research is pioneering for dinosaur paleontology, but promises to be a fruitful avenue to pursue in many dinosaur clades given the wealth of intensified collecting over the last decade.
More broadly, I am interested in issues relating to Mesozoic biogeography and faunal change, and the interplay between phylogeny and the fossil record. I recently developed a cladistic method that can chronologically order paleobiotas by using the temporal information inherent to rooted cladograms of groups that transcend these biotas. The method is adapted from vicariance biogeography, and utilizes the hierarchical order of components or syntaxa as data for analysis. A paper introducing the method and demonstrating its utility on practical examples from the Cenozoic fossil record of North America and the Mesozoic of Asia, has been published in Cladistics.
I firmly believe that field work is integral to developing an active research program, and I lead a field program in the US, as well as collaborative field programs in Asia and South America.
As a lecturer on the University of Chicago's Committee on Evolutionary Biology, I'm looking to work with students who have an interest in aspects of archosaur systematics and Mesozoic biotas.

Recent publications

Erickson, G.M., P. J. Makovicky, P. J. Currie, M. Norell, S. Yerby, & C. A. Brochu. 2004. Gigantism and life history parameters of tyrannosaurid dinosaurs. Nature 430: 772-775..

Makovicky P. J. and M. A. Norell. 2004. Troodontidae. pp. 184-195 in Weishampel, D.B., Dodson, P., and Osmólska, H. (eds.). The Dinosauria. University of California Press, Berkeley.

Makovicky, P.J., Y. Kobayashi, and P. J. Currie. 2004. Ornithomimosauria; pp. 137-150 in Weishampel, D.B., Dodson, P., and Osmólska, H. (eds.). The Dinosauria. University of California Press, Berkeley.

Norell, M. A. and P. J. Makovicky. 2004. Dromaeosauridae; pp. 196-209 in Weishampel, D.B., Dodson, P., and Osmólska, H. (eds.). The Dinosauria. University of California Press, Berkeley.

Makovicky, P. J., Apesteguía, S. & Agnolin, F. L. The earliest dromaeosaurid theropod from South America. Nature 437, 1007-1011 (2005).

Makovicky, P. J. and M. A. Norell. 2006. Yamaceratops dorngobiensis, a new primitive ceratopsian (Dinosauria: Ornithischia) from the Cretaceous of Mongolia. American Museum Novitates 3530: 1-41

Zhao, X. J., Z. W. Cheng, X. Xu and P. J. Makovicky. 2006. A new ceratopsian from the Upper Jurassic Houcheng Formation of Hebei, China. Acta Geologica Sinica-English Edition 80(4): 467-463.

Grellet-Tinner, G. and P. J. Makovicky. 2006. A possible egg of Deinonychus antirrhopus: Phylogenetic and biological implications. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences 43: 705-719.

Norell, M. A., J. M. Clark, A. H. Turner, P. J. Makovicky, R. Barsbold, and T. Rowe. 2006. A New Dromaeosaurid Theropod from Ukhaa Tolgod (Ömnögov, Mongolia). American Museum Novitates 3545: 1 - 51.

Tsuihiji, T. and P. J. Makovicky. 2007. Homology of the ceratopsian cervical bar elements. Journal of Paleontology 81(5): 1132-1138.

Smith, N. D., P. J. Makovicky, W. R. Hammer and P. J. Currie. 2007. Osteology of Cryolophosaurus ellioti (Dinosauria: Theropoda) from the Early Jurassic of Antarctica and implications for early theropod evolution. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 151: 377-421.

Turner, A.H., P. J. Makovicky, and M. A. Norell. 2007. Feather quill knobs in the dinosaur Velociraptor. Science 317: 1721.

Makovicky P. J. 2007. Telling time from fossils: a phylogeny-based approach to chronological ordering of paleobiotas. Cladistics, 24(3): 350-371.

Li, R., Lockley, M. G., Makovicky, P. J., Matsukawa, M., Norell, M. A., Harris, J. D., and Liu, M. 2007. Behavioral and faunal implications of Early Cretaceous deinonychosaur trackways from China. Naturwissenschaften, on-line publication doi:10.1007/s00114-007-0310-7.