EAR-PF: Insect Damage on Leaves Through the Cenozoic in East Africa: The Impact of Geologic and Climatic Change at Multiple Temporal and Spatial Scales

Ellen Currano博士被授予NSF地球科学博士后奖学金，在南方卫理公会大学开展一项研究和教育计划。柯拉诺博士将研究新生代非洲热带植物和食草性昆虫的共同进化。研究目标将通过检查昆虫对化石叶子造成的破坏程度来实现。化石样本将从埃塞俄比亚西北部的两个地点采集，这两个地点代表了晚渐新世(2800万至2300万年前)。化石记录中的信息将与现代树叶进行比较，以了解干旱等物理过程如何影响植物与昆虫的相互作用。此外，柯拉诺博士还将为教育两种不同的受众做出贡献。首先，来自美洲和非洲的本科生将协助在埃塞俄比亚收集样本。其次，将制定一份8年级古植物学课程计划，并分发给德克萨斯州的学校教师。

Dr. Ellen Currano is awarded an NSF Earth Science Postdoctoral Fellowship to carry out a program of research and education at Southern Methodist University. Dr. Currano will study the co-evolution of plants and herbivorous insects in the African tropics during the Cenozoic. The research goals will be accomplished by examining the extent of damage caused by insects in fossil leaves. The fossil samples will be collected from two localities in northwestern Ethiopia that represent the Late Oligocene period (28 to 23 million years ago). The information from the fossil record will be compared with modern leaves to understand how the plant-insect interactions were affected by physical processes like droughts. In addition, Dr. Currano will contribute to the education of two different audiences. First, undergraduate students, from America and Africa, will assist in the collection of samples in Ethiopia. Second, a lesson plan on paleo-botany for 8th grade will be developed and distributed to school teachers in Texas.