International Research Fellow Awards Program: The Biotic Consequences of Andean Uplift

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9600394 Madden The International Research Fellow Awards Program enables U.S. scientists and engineers to conduct three to twenty- four months of research abroad. The program's awards provide opportunities for joint research, and the use of unique or complementary facilities, expertise and experimental conditions abroad. This award will support a nine-month postdoctoral research visit which will support Dr. Robert H. Madden of Duke University to work with Professor Guiomar Vucetich at the Universidad Nacional de La Plata in Brazil. There project is entitled, "The Biotic Consequences of Andean Uplift: Inferences About the Mammalian Fossil Record Based on Living Rodents and Other Mammals." The purpose of this research is to explore the influence of Andean orogeny on the Mio-Pliocene faunal record based on estimates of rainfall and elevation from the composition and structure of mammalian assemblages. Inferences about rainfall and paleoelevation will be based on patterns in the organization of living mammals distributed along elevation and rainfall gradients in South America framed in terms of attributes that can be recognized in the fossil record. Of the methods currently available for estimating rainfall and paleotemperature, faunal methods are probably the least well-developed, and yet may provide the best complement to methods based on stable isotopes and fossil flora. Faunal methods have been undertaken to distinguish between major biomes (e.g., grassland vs forest) or to document departures from modern conditions. These methods open the possibility of reconstructing the environmental history of Andean uplift in South America through the late Neogene. The ability to determine estimates of mean annual rainfall and paleoelevation using the mammalian fossil record depends on the quality of that record, especially adequate sampling and modern taxonomic revision to the species level. The best available fossil records for the studies are those o f altiplano Bolivia and northern Argentina. ***