A Multi-faceted Exploration of Late Paleozoic Communities

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A Multi-faceted Exploration of Late Paleozoic CommunitiesLindsey Leighton, Stephen Schellenberg, Jerad Morrow, and Christie Schneider San Diego State University: EAR-0746072AbstractTo understand how community diversity (the number of species in an ecosystem) can be negatively affected by disturbances, including those induced by humans, we need a clear understanding of the factors controlling biodiversity under normal conditions. Four factors ? climate, habitat, productivity, and interactions among organisms ? have been recognized as influences on community diversity. Although studies of the relationship between diversity and any one factor exist, there have been no studies examining all four factors on the same communities. The goal of this study is to examine the relationship between diversity and the four factors in a set of well-preserved Pennsylvanian (300 million years ago) fossil marine communities from Texas, which are among the oldest that include diverse and abundant elements of both the Paleozoic and Modern Faunas.Fossil marine invertebrates will be collected, identified, and counted from 8-10 separate communities. These data will be analyzed using ordination, a technique that reduces multi-dimensional data (such as those produced by multiple communities) to a graphical plot that permits recognition of similarity among communities. In addition, using geochemical, sedimentological, and predation-trace analyses, it is possible to determine values for the four factors for each community. Having determined which communities are similar, PIs will determine statistically which of the factors influence the degree of similarity among communities, and the interactions among the communities.The entire project is closely linked with student training, projects and classes. Several students will be involved in the project from start to finish and will have an excellent ?hands-on? opportunity to do real research as part of a multi-disciplinary team.Although the results from a single study will not solve the question of how multiple, interacting, factors influence diversity, it is hoped that this study will serve as a model for community analyses, and thus lead to many future studies through time and space.