Evolution of Gastropod-shell inhabiting organisms, preservational constraints and ecological opportunities

该项目研究了从亚热带和热带中新世到新世组合的腹足类贝类生物群的进化模式，作为寄居蟹创造的生态机会和保存偏见的函数。Pi将在墨西哥Purerto Penasco的两个栖息地(岩石潮间带和沙滩)研究与海洋寄居蟹、活蜗牛、空壳和试验性拴系壳有关的贝壳生物体。我将确定与每个贝壳居住者相关的生物群，并制定标准，根据这些贝壳居住者(蜗牛或寄居蟹)及其未来的栖息地，可以在化石记录中识别。然后，我将使用化石记录来确定这些生物群是否(1)作为公会重复出现或由于寄居蟹提供了一种新的底物(空腹足类外壳)而随时间变化，(2)足以区分寄居蟹的进化史，以及(3)表明寄居蟹在多大程度上偏离了腹足类化石记录，从而潜在地偏向腹足类古生态。寄居蟹可能导致了贝壳生物群的进化突破，而这个生物群反过来可能表明了寄居蟹鲜为人知的化石历史及其随着时间的推移对贝壳的使用。研究将解决生态互动可能随着时间的变化而发生的变化。

This project investigates the evolutionary patterns of gastropod shell biota from subtropical and tropical Miocene to Recene assemblanges as a function of ecological opportunities and preservational biases created by hermit crabs. PI will study shell bionts associated with a guild of marine hermit crabs, living snails, empty and experimental tethered shells in two habitats (rocky intertidal and sandflat) in Purerto Penasco, Mexico. I will identify guilds of bionts associated with each shell inhabitant and formulate criteria by which these shell occupants (snail or hermit crab), and their prospective habitats, can be recognized in the fossil record. I will then determine, using the fossil record, if these bionts are (1) recurrent as guilds or change through time as a result of hermit crabs providing a novel substrate (the empty gastropod shell), (2) adequate to distingush the evolutionary history of the hermit crab, and (3) indicative of how much the gastropod fossil record has been biased by hermit crabs, thus potentially biasing gastropod paleoecology. Hermit crabs may have caused evolutionary breakthroughs in shell biota and this biota, in turn, may be indicative of the little known fossil history of hermit crabs and their shell use through time. Research will address how ecoligcal interactions may have changed through time.