Paleobiology of High Latitude Decapod Crustacean Assemblages

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This award supports an investigation of Cretaceous and Tertiary decapod crustaceans (crabs and lobsters) from southern South America and a comparison of these fossils to similar faunas from Seymour Island, Antarctica. In late Cretaceous to early Cenozoic time, South America, Australia, New Zealand, and Antarctica formed a contiguous landmass in the southern Circum-Pacific region and so dispersal of faunas was presumably unimpeded. Work in these regions so far suggests that the southern high latitude region played an important role in the evolution and dispersal of new species. However, details of evolutionary centers and dispersal patterns remain tentative, in part because of insufficient field studies in the Antarctic Peninsula and southern South America. This work will alleviate part of the geographical gap in knowledge by collecting and describing decapod crustaceans from known Cretaceous-Tertiary stratigraphic sections in southern Chile and Argentina. Comparison of decapods from southern South America with those known from Australia, New Zealand, and the Antarctic Peninsula is an essential part of a paleoecological model of the entire southern hemisphere. In addition, this work will help to define the paleogeographic context for the unique Cretaceous-Tertiary fossils assemblages that have recently been described from Seymour Island, Antarctica.