| Perspective metazoan complexity and evolution: is there a trend? DW McShea Evolution 50 (2), 477-492, 1996 | 498 | 1996 |
| Mechanisms of large‐scale evolutionary trends DW McShea Evolution 48 (6), 1747-1763, 1994 | 467 | 1994 |
| Biology's first law: the tendency for diversity and complexity to increase in evolutionary systems DW McShea, RN Brandon University of Chicago Press, 2010 | 464 | 2010 |
| Individual versus social complexity, with particular reference to ant colonies C Anderson, DW McShea Biological reviews 76 (2), 211-237, 2001 | 426 | 2001 |
| Complexity and evolution: what everybody knows DW McShea Biology and Philosophy 6, 303-324, 1991 | 373 | 1991 |
| Philosophy of biology: A contemporary introduction A Rosenberg, DW McShea Routledge, 2007 | 336 | 2007 |
| Detecting changes in morphospace occupation patterns in the fossil record: characterization and analysis of measures of disparity CN Ciampaglio, M Kemp, DW McShea Paleobiology 27 (4), 695-715, 2001 | 309 | 2001 |
| Two-phase increase in the maximum size of life over 3.5 billion years reflects biological innovation and environmental opportunity JL Payne, AG Boyer, JH Brown, S Finnegan, M Kowalewski, RA Krause Jr, ... Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106 (1), 24-27, 2009 | 275 | 2009 |
| Origin and evolution of large brains in toothed whales L Marino, DW McShea, MD Uhen The Anatomical Record Part A: Discoveries in Molecular, Cellular, and …, 2004 | 203 | 2004 |
| Possible largest-scale trends in organismal evolution: Eight “live hypotheses” DW McShea Annual review of ecology and systematics 29 (1), 293-318, 1998 | 154 | 1998 |
| Functional complexity in organisms: parts as proxies DW McShea Biology and Philosophy 15, 641-668, 2000 | 152 | 2000 |
| The hierarchical structure of organisms: a scale and documentation of a trend in the maximum DW McShea Paleobiology 27 (2), 405-423, 2001 | 144 | 2001 |
| The evolutionary consequences of oxygenic photosynthesis: a body size perspective JL Payne, CR McClain, AG Boyer, JH Brown, S Finnegan, M Kowalewski, ... Photosynthesis research 107, 37-57, 2011 | 112 | 2011 |
| Intermediate-level parts in insect societies: adaptive structures that ants build away from the nest C Anderson, DW McShea Insectes Sociaux 48, 291-301, 2001 | 109 | 2001 |
| Evolutionary change in the morphological complexity of the mammalian vertebral column DW McShea Evolution 47 (3), 730-740, 1993 | 102 | 1993 |
| The evolution of complexity without natural selection, a possible large-scale trend of the fourth kind DW McShea Paleobiology 31 (S2), 146-156, 2005 | 95 | 2005 |
| Body size evolution across the Geozoic FA Smith, JL Payne, NA Heim, MA Balk, S Finnegan, M Kowalewski, ... Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences 44 (1), 523-553, 2016 | 88 | 2016 |
| The complexity and hierarchical structure of tasks in insect societies C Anderson, NR Franks, DW McShea Animal Behaviour 62 (4), 643-651, 2001 | 87 | 2001 |
| The minor transitions in hierarchical evolution and the question of a directional bias DW McShea Journal of Evolutionary Biology 14 (3), 502-518, 2001 | 83 | 2001 |
| A complexity drain on cells in the evolution of multicellularity DW McShea Evolution 56 (3), 441-452, 2002 | 79 | 2002 |
