Earth Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Award

利伯曼，布鲁斯S。 拟议的研究解决了生态群落在管理地球生命进化中所起作用的基本问题。 寒武纪辐射是研究这一过程的理想古生物学系统，因为多样化的步伐很快，因为它标志着海洋群落和包含多种动物的复杂生态系统的首次出现。 为了探索寒武纪期间古生态和进化模式和过程之间的关系，研究员将把这些模式与后来记录的模式进行比较，同时考虑伴随辐射的环境变化。 具体来说，当复杂群落不存在时，控制寒武纪快速辐射的进化规则与后来群落建立良好时的规则有根本性的不同吗？ 该研究员将利用自己在泥盆纪化石谱系研究方面的专门知识;他将应用古环境分析和对物种分布数据的多元统计分析，以确定古群落和循环组合，并确定它们是稳定的还是随时间波动的。 这项研究将增加对地球历史上动物开始多样化这一独特事件的了解，并将阐明社区在多样化和灭绝中所起的作用。

EAR-9515216 Lieberman, Bruce S. The proposed research addresses the fundamental problem of the role that ecological communities play in governing the evolution of life on earth. The Cambrian radiation is ideally suited as a paleontological system for studying this process because of the rapid pace of diversification, and because it marks the first appearance of marine communities and complex ecosystems containing diverse animals. To explore the relationship between paleoecological and evolutionary patterns and processes during the Cambrian, the Fellow will compare those patterns with those documented from later time periods while considering the environmental changes that accompanied the radiation. Specifically, did the evolutionary rules governing the rapid Cambrian radiation when complex communities were absent differ fundamentally from rules that operated later when communities were well established? The Fellow will draw upon his own expertise from the study of Devonian fossil lineages; he will apply paleoenvironmental analyses and multivariate statistical analyses of data on species distributions to identify paleocommunities and recurrent assemblages, and determine if they are stable or fluctuating with time. The study will increase understanding of the unique event in Earth history when animals began to diversify, and it will elucidate the role communities play in diversification and extinction.