Peter J. Mayhew is a British biologist at the University of York in the United Kingdom. He graduated with a MA in Zoology from University of Oxford, and then undertook a PhD in insect behavioural ecology at Imperial College supervised by Charles Godfray from 1993 to 1996.[1] He is the lead author of a study showing a long-term association between global temperature and biodiversity, origination, and extinction in the fossil record.[2] This study demonstrated that biodiversity tends to be relatively low during greenhouse phases in Earth history and that extinction rates (including mass extinctions) tend to be higher.[3] On the basis of this work he was nominated as one of the "Great Britons of 2007".[4] He is also author of a textbook on evolutionary ecology.[1]