DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Revealing the Floristic and Biogeographic Composition of Paleocene to Miocene Neotropical Forests

恐龙灭绝后，南美洲生活着什么样的植物？什么植物在4000万年前占领了中美洲的新兴岛屿？安第斯山脉的崛起是如何影响南美森林的？这些是几十年来一直没有答案的一些问题。研究来自哥伦比亚、Perú和巴拿马的保存完好的水果化石，通过6000万到1900万年前的连续阶段，将揭示这些古老森林的演变及其对过去气候和地理变化的反应。新发现的化石和与现存植物的详细比较分析将为拉丁美洲古代森林的进化提供新的见解。该项目将促进国际合作和招收其他本科生和研究生，发展关于化石植物重要性的网络展览，并在科学和非科学期刊上发表研究结果。南美洲和中美洲的热带雨林是当今世界上植物多样性最高的地区。如果没有化石记录提供的深时间视角，就无法完全理解这种惊人的多样性。研究该地区（遗传、生态、古气候和地质研究）的研究人员将受益于该古植物学研究的区域性和广泛的年龄谱。

What kinds of plants inhabited South America right after the extinction of the dinosaurs? What plants colonized the emergent islands in Central America ~40 million years ago? How did the rise of the Andes affect South American forests? These are some of the questions that have continued unanswered for many decades. Investigating well-preserved fossil fruits from Colombia, Perú, and Panama, through successive stages between ~60 and ~19 million years ago, will reveal the evolution of those ancient forests and their responses to past climatic and geographic changes. The newly recovered fossils and detailed comparative analyses with extant plants will provide new insights into the evolution of ancient forests in Latin America.This project will promote international collaboration and recruitment of other undergraduate and graduate students, developing of cyber-exhibits on the importance of fossil plants, and publishing of results in scientific and non-scientific journals. South and Central American rainforests have the highest plant diversity of any region in the world today. This phenomenal diversity cannot be fully understood without the deep-time perspective that the fossil record offers. Researchers working on the region (genetic, ecological, paleoclimatic and geological studies) will benefit from the regional and broad age spectrum of this paleobotanical study.