Earth Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Award

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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.